The Flight of the Impala
by Wallflowergirl
Summary: Somewhere, lost in this hell of heat and blinding sun and arid waterlessness, was his brother...
1. Chapter 1

_**I watched **_**The Flight of the Phoenix**_** the other night. As Jared P's character left the crashed plane in the middle of the night I said to him, "Don't go wandering in the desert – Dean isn't around to rescue you if something goes wrong..." and then he got lost (of course) and ended up getting sand-blasted to death, which bothered me enough that I stopped watching soon after that. So, to provide some kind of closure for myself, I just had to write a Supernatural version, in which Dean **_**was**_** around...**_

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Dean was annoying.

Sam, if he had to be honest with himself, couldn't really blame him. Being sick sucked. Being sick with flu sucked even more. And it had been a particularly nasty virus. It was almost a week since Dean had finally given in to the aches and shivers, and he'd been huddled under the ugly motel bedclothes since then.

If it had been Sam, he would have been on his back a lot sooner. He'd watched the slow descent: Dean clearing his throat more than usual, Dean climbing out of bed in the morning and then just sitting on the edge; Dean trying to hide the fact that he was wearing an extra sweater, even though it was summer in Nevada. Dean would never have put up with those symptoms if Sam had been displaying them. But Sam was the little brother, the one without authority: even though he'd insisted that Dean should get some rest, Dean had just ignored him. And the collapse had only been greater when it had come.

Dean had been sick enough that Sam had considered hospital several times. In the lucid moments between feverish nightmares Dean had flatly refused to cooperate with that, and Sam had been angry with him, because he'd been scared.

But the fever had come down, and the chills and aches and sore throat had subsided, and now Dean was at the irritable stage.

The irritating stage.

Sam's sympathy had withered under the onslaught of sweaty clothes left lying around, containers of half-eaten takeout ripening on the nightstand and tidemarks in the bathroom sink. Dean was not obsessively tidy at the best of times. Now he seemed to think that convalescence gave him the right to be as disgustingly messy as he could.

Then there was his insistence on having the television at full volume. Sam was casually looking for a new hunt, something that was not too urgent or strenuous. He didn't mind Dean watching – it was better than trying to prevent him from staggering out to find a bar – but _Brainless Bimbos Behaving Like Hookers_ didn't mix well with accounts of chupacabra activity. Especially when he'd heard every word of the inane script four times over. At headache-inducing levels.

Sam had tried to reason with him. He knew Dean was bored, and that there wasn't much to do when one's legs would barely support one to the bathroom and back, but it was almost impossible to concentrate. And his ears were beginning to hurt.

Dean's response had been to turn the volume up further.

Sam loved his brother dearly, but if they had to spend much more time holed up in this stuffy motel room he was going to be guilty of assault. With _full_ intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

* * *

Sam was crabby.

Okay, he'd been pretty good while Dean had been sick. Maybe he had hovered way more than was necessary – it was only flu, not the friggin' Black Death – but he'd always seemed to know what Dean needed, whether it was something warm to soothe his throat or Tylenol or an extra blanket. And while those fever dreams had not, of course, been frightening at all, it had been rather a relief to wake up each time to find Sam right there and awake. Not that Dean would ever dream of admitting that.

But now Sam was just plain grumpy.

It had only been one container of mac 'n cheese. And it was Sam who'd brought it for him! It wasn't Dean's fault that his stomach had suddenly complained and he'd had to leave half of it. And then Sam had gone off about the dirty clothes, as if Dean should have walked right out with a fever of a hundred and three and done the laundry. They weren't planning to entertain the Queen of England; did it really matter if his t-shirt and boxers were in a pile on the bathroom floor?

Now Sam was giving him sideways looks, with his nose clamped and his lips pressed together. He'd said nothing for more than an hour, not since he'd demanded that Dean turn the volume down.

Well, his ears were still not really clear after the flu, so he couldn't have it too low. And _Sorority Girls Gone Wild _lost its impact if it wasn't played loudly enough. Especially the scene with the blonde chick and the melted chocolate.

Seeing how annoyed he could make Sam had _nothing_ to do with it.

The truth was that he was bored. If he had to be honest with himself he wasn't really feeling well enough to hunt anything, but he'd been staring at the same powder-blue walls and polyester curtains for over a week, and they hadn't been exciting the first time he'd seen them. Up until yesterday he hadn't cared much about his surroundings, other than that they were warm, and soft, and didn't make sudden loud noises, but now he wanted out.

He would have been completely fine sitting quietly in a bar, but Sam wouldn't let him go. In addition to being cranky about the food and the laundry and the television, Sam was maddeningly stubborn about letting Dean go out; something about being too weak to walk far. And even when Dean tried to compromise by saying he'd drive, Sam told him he'd probably get dizzy and crash the Impala.

Dean would give his life for his brother, but if he didn't get out of this room soon he was going to do something that Sam would regret.

* * *

"Dude."

Five repeats of _Brainless Bimbos_ had apparently been enough even for Dean. Sam had been sitting in beautiful silence for the last fifteen minutes, staring at his computer screen while Dean slept.

He started violently when Dean spoke.

"Geez, bro... jumpy much?" Dean pushed himself up against the headboard.

Sam rubbed his eyes.

"I thought you were sleeping."

Dean dismissed that idea with the contempt it deserved.

"I've been thinking. We should go to Vegas."

"Vegas." Sam sat back in his chair, one eyebrow raised in patent scepticism. "Dean –"

"No, man, listen. We haven't got a hunt at the moment and we're right nearby. We could take a couple days, make some money... it'd be fun."

"Dean, you've just had flu. You can barely walk around the room –"

"I could walk just fine if I was given the chance, and anyway, playing poker isn't the Boston Marathon."

"But –"

"If I have to sit in this room much longer, Sam, I'm going to go stark raving insane."

Sam looked at Dean and then away, and then hooked his hands behind his neck with a sigh.

"Yeah. Me too."

Dean straightened up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching for his duffle.

"Good. Let's go."

"_Now_?" Sam stiffened, and frowned. "You're not well enough –"

"Dude, I'm okay. I'm okay! I swear, if you don't stop hovering I'm gonna deck you."

Sam's eyes flickered.

_I'm not hovering. It's called being concerned and making sure my brother is okay and doesn't kill himself by being a complete moron and using up all his energy when he's just been really sick. And in any case, I didn't see you complaining when you were delirious and kept begging me not to leave you, or when your throat was sore and you wanted soup or – _

"Okay, fine." He closed the laptop with a click.

Dean looked startled, and a little suspicious.

"That's it? You're not arguing?"

Sam stood up and slid his laptop into its case. His back was to Dean.

"It wouldn't work if I did, would it? You want to go to Vegas, fine. We'll go to Vegas." His face when he turned around was impassive. "Just don't blame me when you have a relapse."

Dean snorted, but the prospect of something other than dull blue polyester had obviously cheered him, and he packed up with more energy than Sam had seen in over a week.

* * *

Sam was still crabby.

He'd given in over the Vegas plan, but disapproval was evident in the way he sat head down, glaring through the windscreen, in his stiff silence and tight mouth. He'd absolutely refused to let Dean drive, which had almost sparked a real argument between them.

Dean looked at him, thought about making some light-hearted comment, remembered the monosyllabic replies which had met his previous attempts at conversation, and decided to remain silent.

_Bear._

_Party-pooper._

_Buzz-killer._

He leant his head against the window.

Sam was great. Sam was great backup on a hunt. Hell, he was a great hunter in his own right, not just as backup. He was a great researcher. Sam had many qualities that were... great. Dean couldn't imagine having to live his life without Sam.

Right now he was having a hard time not being extremely irritated with his brother.

Sam was great.

Sam was also too serious, too disapproving, had too sensitive a conscience, suffered from chronic sense of humour failure... Sometimes, as a companion, Sam just sucked.

Dean's head began to ache again. He resisted the urge to rub his temples, knowing it would incite Sam to criticise him further, and closed his eyes. He might as well catch up on the sleep that he intended to miss once they reached Vegas.

"_...if you don't stop hovering I'm gonna deck you..."_

He tried to ignore the memory of a momentary flare of hurt in familiar blue-green eyes.

* * *

Maybe he could try that matchstick thing. What was that movie they'd watched? The guy who'd driven all night and eventually propped his eyelids open with matches... he couldn't remember the name... anyway, it might be worth a try. If they had matches, of course.

_I'm tired._

_I'm tired._

_I'm friggin' TIRED!_

His eyes watered as the third yawn in a row defied his attempts to keep his mouth shut.

The car was warm. Maybe a little too hot, really, but not unpleasant. It was soporific. Dean would have scoffed at him for using a word like that, but Dean was asleep... snoring more loudly than usual against the passenger window. Anyway, Dean wouldn't have laughed at him for using "soporific" because he wouldn't have used it out loud, because he was angry with Dean and Dean was irritated with him. Dean thought Sam didn't know he was irritated with him, but he did. He could tell from the way Dean breathed through his nose. Kind of like the way he was snoring... like he was asleep, but not... snoring rhythmically against the window, because he was asleep now, unlike earlier when he was breathing heavily through his nose because he was angry, not because he was aslee...

The car swerved as Sam jerked back to full wakefulness. He clutched the steering wheel while his heart thudded.

_Stupid... stupid... almost got us killed..._

But he was just so tired.

He wanted to sleep. He wanted to lie down on a lovely firm mattress and a lovely soft pillow in a wonderful quiet dark room and go to sleep. A real, long sleep, where he didn't wake up ten minutes after dropping off to hear Dean muttering and gasping, or lie awake listening to Dean's hoarse breathing and wondering if it would have stopped when he woke up, or get tormented by nightmares in which Dean died horribly from complications of flu...

The fence posts on the side of the road flashed past evenly. Predictable. Wasn't that what Chinese water torture was about? Little drips at regular intervals... and eventually you went mad waiting for the next drip and the next and the next and the next and the next and...

A truck going in the opposite direction blasted its horn as the Impala drifted over the centre line again.

Matchsticks... matchsticks... what was that movie called?

Maybe it was possible to fall asleep with your eyes open. Like frogs... or was it fish? They had a transparent eyelid that came down and protected their eyes while they slept so it looked like they were awake. Or maybe that was alligators. Although it seemed rather pointless really, because surely the point of eyelids closing was to stop the light coming in when you wanted to sleep? But it would be useful in lectures sometimes...

_So tired..._

He was glad Dean was asleep. Dean needed to sleep. And Sam didn't want to talk to him because he was mad and Dean was irritated. But it might have been nice to have someone to talk to, even if it was Dean, because he was so tired and it was difficult to stay awake and concentrate on the road and on the road signs. And if Dean was awake they could have played some music, something loud and full of drums and guaranteed to allow no sleeping. Because he really... REALLY... wanted to sleep right now.

How far was it to Vegas anyway?

They'd never been before. Dean had wanted to go for ages. Sam didn't want to go as much as Dean did, but he didn't _not_ want to. Dean thought he hated having fun, but that wasn't true. It was more that he had a different idea of what was fun, and he also liked to try to do things legally once in a while. And wasn't he entitled to that, since they did so many illegal things, all the time? He did it because it was necessary and it meant that people's lives were saved, but he didn't have to like it. Not that going to Vegas meant doing something illegal, of course, other than the fake credit card they'd use to pay for their motel, and that was pretty much par for the course.

Their motel... with a lovely bed in it – or two beds, rather – where he could sleep. Maybe Dean wouldn't mind if Sam just slept while they were there...

* * *

His headache was gone.

That was the good news.

He was otherwise supremely uncomfortable. He'd slept well, despite being upright in a car seat with his head slumped against the window, but his neck was now stiffly complaining against having been kept at that odd angle for several hours. And it was hot. It was insanely hot. The Impala was stopped, and the air was oppressively still.

"Sam..." He must have slept with his mouth open. A disgusting gluey film coated his tongue and palate, and his voice came out sounding like something he might hunt. He swallowed stickily and tried again.

"Sam! Are we in Vegas..." His voice petered out again, but this time in confusion.

This was definitely not Vegas. Not unless an atomic bomb had somehow secretly wiped out everything that remotely resembled civilisation. There were no lights, no hotels and casinos, no expensive cars. There were no flashily-dressed people.

There were no people at all, except for one uncomfortable and distinctly guilty-looking little brother in the driver's seat.

"Sam?" Dean's gaze passed suspiciously from his brother's face to the unsurfaced road that stretched away in front of the Impala. Scrubby green bushes sparsely dotted the landscape, which was otherwise composed of dusty chips of rock and gravelly sand. Far off in the shimmering distance blue contours indicated some unidentified mountain range.

"Sam, where the hell are we?"

Sam cleared his throat, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. His face was unusually flushed.

"We... uh... I'm not _entirely_ sure."

Dean abandoned his scrutiny of the surroundings and focused on his brother.

"What?"

"I _think_ I know." Sam's hasty response to the flat incredulity in Dean's voice was not encouraging. "In fact I'm pretty certain. I think we're somewhere in... well, in Death Valley."

"Death Valley." Dean mused on that for a moment. "Sam... um... since when did we have to pass through _Death Valley_ to get to Vegas?"

Sam shifted in his seat. He didn't answer, but the embarrassed flush deepened.

"Sam?"

"I turned the wrong way, okay? On Route 95 or... or something. I should have turned right, I turned left. Or the other way round." Sam was obviously irritated as well as embarrassed, but whether it was with himself or Dean was impossible to tell.

"Right. Yeah. Well, that makes perfect sense. I mean, these are only national roads. I'm sure there were no road signs. And of course, we don't have a perfectly good map, and you haven't been able to tell left from right since you were three."

Sam's face was in profile and long wisps of hair obscured his eyes, but Dean could imagine the scowl that greeted his words. Sam's mouth looked annoyed.

Dean cleared his throat loudly, and drummed a quick tattoo with his fingers on the dash.

"So... don't think I'm complaining or anything, because this is amazing, and I'd like nothing better than to just sit here and enjoy the breathtaking magnificence of nature, but why are we stopped? Especially since we're now probably twice as far from Vegas as we were when we started."

Sam took a deep breath, and let it out loudly through his mouth. He didn't look at Dean when he answered.

"We're out of gas."

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_**So, let me know what you think...**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N 1: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed, or favourited or alerted! Thanks to dcp8, Queen Bee and mellon who reviewed anonymously... I really appreciate the comments :-) **_

_**A/N 2: I've never been to Death Valley, so I can't say from personal experience, but in the pictures it looks very beautiful. The opinions of it expressed by the characters here (namely Dean!) are **_**not**_** the opinions of the author... we all know how Dean mouths off when he's upset!**_

**_Disclaimer: I don't have time for any of this blah blah blah blah..._**

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"_What?_" Any amusement that might have been mixed into Dean's voice before was now distinctly absent. He glanced out through the window again, as if to confirm to himself what he'd not fully realised before. "There's no gas?"

"Yuh." Sam still wasn't looking at Dean.

Dean closed his eyes for a long moment, and then turned very deliberately to face his brother.

"In other words, we are actually _stranded_ in the ass-end of nowhere."

Sam's jaw worked, but he didn't answer.

"Sam." Dean's voice was deceptively mild. "Do you mind telling me what the _hell_ you were thinking? You managed to drive us spectacularly off course, somehow mysteriously ignoring the map, the road signs, the fact that we were driving on a _gravel road_, and then didn't even notice that we were running out of gas?" A thought occurred to him. "What about the spare can?"

"Empty." For the first time Sam looked at him. "And that's your fault, Dean, because you used it on that black dog."

Dean's eyes flickered.

"Black... oh yeah. If I remember correctly, I went back to the motel and collapsed with flu, and since then you haven't allowed me behind the wheel. So enlighten me as to when I'm supposed to have filled it up, Sam!"

Sam was sullenly silent. Dean ran his hands through his hair.

"This is just... this is unbelievable."

"Dean –"

"What, Sam? Please tell me you have some brilliant plan for getting us out of this, or at least a really good explanation! Because right now all I'm seeing is us sitting here becoming prunes when we should be in Vegas, just because you somehow managed not to look at the gas meter!"

"I didn't even want to go to friggin' Vegas!" Anger sparked in blue-green eyes. "It was your idea, and then you got to sleep while I had to drive. You're not the only tired one, Dean –"

"Oh, don't even go there, Sam! I _offered_ to drive, and _you_ wouldn't let me –"

"Yeah, I wouldn't let you because you've just had flu, Dean! You should still be in bed! You can barely walk to the bathroom! If you'd been driving we would probably be wrapped around a tree now, or in some ditch, because you would have gotten dizzy behind the wheel and blacked out or something!"

"I would not!"

"This whole idea was stupid, and if you'd only listened to me –"

"If I'd listened to you, Sam, I would be certifiable by now. If I'd listened to you we would still be in that motel room! Maybe after another brain-meltingly boring week we could have gone for an exciting trip to a library, and then we could have gone back to our thrilling room and watched spine-tingling documentaries together, because God forbid we should ever do anything that's actually fun or relaxing!"

"I have no problem with doing something fun, Dean, it's just that your idea of fun usually seems to involve something illegal or stupid!"

"Yeah? Well, all I know is any time I ever suggest doing anything other than work you look down that long nose of yours and raise objections and get all disapproving!"

"I don't _always_ disapprove –"

"Oh really? When was the last time I suggested we do something together that wasn't a hunt, and you just agreed without giving me some long sermon?" Dean scrubbed one hand over his face. "Man, you're a great hunter, I'll give you that, but as a companion you really suck."

He knew, as soon as the words were out, that he'd hurt his brother. Sam's face twitched, as it always did when he was shocked or upset: his eyes widening fractionally and then hiding behind lowered lids; his lips curling as his nostrils flared. He tilted his head slightly, jerkily, and Dean saw him swallow.

A small part of Dean, the part that always stayed calm and focused, wanted to kick himself for what he'd said. He'd thought it, maybe even meant it to a certain extent, but if he hadn't been angry he would not have dreamt of actually saying it out loud.

But the same anger that had prompted him to verbalise the thought now kept him from really regretting it. Sam had been stupid, had been careless. He'd been so scathing about Dean's Vegas plan, so disapproving, and then he'd somehow managed to land them in what looked to be a serious predicament. Resentment and annoyance warred briefly with brotherly concern, and won.

He clenched his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath through his nose.

"So. Any brilliant ideas?"

* * *

Sam leant against the driver's door of the Impala. It was early evening, but the heat showed no signs of abating. There was no position that reduced the discomfort; even as he crouched in the meagre shadow of the car, his t-shirt clung wetly wherever it touched. His over-shirt had long since been discarded.

He knew he'd be more comfortable inside the car. It was probably hotter, but it did at least provide a place to sit. The angular little rocks had thwarted his earlier attempt to seat himself on the ground, and even if they hadn't, his jeans were a poor insulation against the warmth of the sand. He would have liked to take off his shoes – the hot clamminess of sweaty socks was almost unbearable against his feet – but without them his skin would have blistered in minutes.

But Dean was in the car. Dean, who was angry with him. Dean, who didn't want him around.

"_...as a companion you really suck..."_

If the pebbles hadn't been too hot to handle he would have thrown one.

He was angry with Dean, too, for this whole stupid plan, for dragging them both out when he was convalescent and Sam was exhausted. He clung to the anger, nurtured it, because it was easier to be angry than to face the hurt of what Dean had said.

"_...as a companion you really suck..."_

He had always been aware that he and Dean were different. Their tastes were different, in music, in clothes, in food, in girls; their goals were different, or had been before a burning apartment ceiling turned Sam's life upside down; Sam wanted normal, and Dean shunned it. Sometimes, secretly, Sam had wondered if he and Dean would even have been friends if they hadn't been brothers.

But they _were_ brothers. Hard on the heels of that uncertainty had always come the awareness of exactly what their brotherhood meant, of the things that they had seen, the experiences that they'd endured together, and he'd known that no college buddy or study partner could ever hope to compare with that. And they'd changed. He'd changed. He understood his brother more than before, understood what drove him. He knew Dean better now than he ever had when they were children. Their interests and tastes might not always correspond, but Dean was his best friend.

And Dean thought his friendship sucked.

He pulled up his t-shirt and wiped his dripping face on the hem.

Dean had been a little startled at his own words. Sam had seen his eyes flicker momentarily, as if he hadn't meant to say it. He'd also seen the brief concern swept away by stronger frustration. And there'd only been impatience in the way Dean had asked for ideas. Dean might have been aware of the impact of his words, but he hadn't cared enough to say anything.

Sam knew he'd been careless. He knew he'd been negligent. He should have paid more attention to where he was going, and he should never have let the gas run out. But it had been enough of an effort to keep his eyes open, to make sure the Impala stayed on the road and didn't wander into oncoming traffic. He'd been too fatigued to wonder why the surface was becoming poorer. He had honestly not even considered the gas tank, and even when the car had choked, spluttered and finally died it had been several befuddled minutes before he'd figured out what had happened.

And now they sat. Or Dean sat, and Sam crouched. Dean didn't want to call emergency services; he was wanted in several states for various crimes, his or otherwise, and being saved from a desiccated fate in one of the hottest places on earth was not exactly low profile. If he had not been distracted by the memory of Dean's words, Sam would probably have made more of a fuss about the decision, but Dean was obdurate. They could not be the only people who used this road; someone would come along. Sam could have told him that they'd passed no-one for hours while driving, but he shrank from the prospect of another fight.

He tipped the bottle in his right hand, and swallowed the last mouthful of warm water. It had been ice-cold when he'd pulled it out of the chest on the back seat, but he'd forced himself to drink it slowly. There were several more bottles, aside from beer and the one he'd silently tossed to Dean. It was enough, but it wasn't much. And Dean had had flu.

"_...if you don't stop hovering I'm gonna deck you..."_

Well, Dean could just suck it up. Sam wasn't going to let him dehydrate, even if it meant going without water himself.

* * *

"I'm gonna call Bobby."

Dean's disembodied voice floated out of the window, startling Sam out of the exhausted semi-trance into which he'd drifted.

"Uh... what... why?" That bottle of water seemed an eternity away; Sam's mouth was sticky with inhaled dust.

He heard Dean mutter something undoubtedly uncomplimentary.

"We've been sitting here for over four hours and no-one's come along. If Bobby's somewhere nearby on a job he could come through and bring us gas, and if he's not he'll probably know someone who could."

"Oh. Okay." If he'd been more awake Sam would probably have thought of that himself. As it was, the suffocating heat made it difficult to be enthusiastic. "Hope you can get service here." He lifted his head from where it had been drooping onto his chest and leaned it back against the side of the car.

"Two bars... one bar..." Dean pushed open the door and got out, peering at the screen of his phone. "It's not great but it should be enough." He half-sat on the hood and then leapt away with a cry.

"What?"

"Friggin' hood's like a hotplate." He patted the seat of his jeans gingerly. "Of all the places you could have chosen, Sam, you had to strand us in hell?" He walked away without waiting for a response.

Sam let out his breath with a huff and stood up stiffly, straightening limbs that had been folded in one position for too long. He leant against the side of the car and watched his brother. From the way Dean's hand cupped the back of his neck and the tilt of his head it was obvious that he was uncomfortable with the conversation. Sam had no doubt that Dean was assigning the blame to him, and he was almost relieved that he was too far away to hear the words. He already knew exactly what Dean thought without having to hear it repeated.

"_...as a companion you really suck..."_

He lowered his head and stared at a chunky little rock, and blinked angrily when it blurred unexpectedly.

"Bobby's working a gig in Colorado." Dean was back. He opened the passenger door and sat down sideways, booted feet on the hot sand. "He'll be along as soon as he's wasted the sucker. Poltergeist, I think. He said to sit tight, not wander off or do anything stupid, and drink a lot. Of _water, _ya idjit! His words."

Sam's mouth twitched. Dean leant back across the seat and put his arm across his eyes.

"You okay?" Concern brought Sam a step closer. The exasperation in Dean's voice stopped him short.

"I'm great, Sam. I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, I'm hot, I'm thirsty, I'm bored, and I would be in Vegas right now if my little brother hadn't somehow managed to forget his brain in that crap-hole of a motel. I'm fine. I'm absolutely super."

Sam didn't answer. The silence stretched out as the sun sank slowly behind the distant mountains, a display of brilliant colour that both Winchesters were too preoccupied to notice.

* * *

Dean was snoring.

Dean always snored when he slept on his back, but somehow it had never really disturbed Sam.

Before now.

Maybe it was the remnants of the flu, making the sound louder. Or maybe it was the absolute impossibility of cramming six foot four of torso and long legs into the backseat of the Impala. Then again, it might have been the stifling heat, which did not seem to have eased even though the sun had long since vanished.

Maybe it was all three conspiring together.

Sam couldn't sleep.

He'd dozed off briefly, even managed to fit in a nightmare, but since waking in a sweat that was only partly due to the ambient temperature he had been wide awake.

It was ridiculous, really. He knew he was tired. He could feel the weariness dragging at him, and even more than usual he did not want to lie there and listen to Dean sleep. There would be enough hours the next day in which there was nothing to do, in which his thoughts would be the only thing to keep him occupied. It was ironic that it had been lack of sleep that had landed them in this predicament in the first place, and now that he finally had the opportunity sleep wouldn't come.

At least Dean wasn't awake. An uncomfortable silence during the day was bad enough, but at least then they could minutely examine the scenery and pretend that there was nothing wrong. In the dark it would have been impossible to ignore the elephant perched on the seat between them.

"_...as a companion you really suck..."_

Would it never stop?

It was stupid to mind so much, stupid to be so hurt by something which Dean had said in the heat of his frustration. It was easy to fire verbal weapons without thinking enough about them, and he knew Dean would never have said it if he'd not been angry and irritated.

_Well then, why didn't he take it back?_

Sometimes being angry was like being drunk. A person blurted things out that he would never have dreamt of saying under normal circumstances. But just because he'd never said them didn't mean that he hadn't been thinking them. The anger or the alcohol just served to remove his usual inhibitions.

_Is that what Dean really thinks of me... that I suck... that I'm a useless companion? Is that what he's actually thinking when we're doing stuff together?_

He thrust the sweat-dampened strands of hair from his forehead.

_Stop thinking about it. Everything's worse at night. And anyway Dean is still here, and he hasn't left me to go hunt with someone else, so he can't hate my company that much._

"_...as a companion you really suck..."_

_Stop it!_

He wanted to yell it out loud, break the oppressive stillness, if only to drown out the relentless repetition in his head. But that would only wake Dean, and then the silence would be even worse.

It was impossibly hot. The heat had nothing to do with the tumult of his mind, but he found himself resenting it passionately. If it wasn't hot, he might be able to sleep. If it wasn't hot, he wouldn't be lying there in sweaty stickiness, replaying the day's events. If it hadn't been so hot, he might not have been so sleepy and he might have turned right instead of left and they might now be sleeping comfortably in an air-conditioned room in Las Vegas and Dean might never have been frustrated enough to say those things to Sam.

_But he would still be thinking them._

He sat up, hard enough to send a quiver through the Impala. In the front seat Dean shifted, mumbling something and Sam stilled as one hand reached for the door. Dean was in a bad enough mood as it was; if he was woken in the middle of the night like this...

But Dean's mutter faded as he settled back into sleep, and Sam breathed again. Moving more carefully, he opened the door and slipped out of the car.

The air slid idly over damp skin, marginally cooler than inside. Warmth still struck up from the sand and from rocks that had soaked in sunlight, but it was bearable under the soles of his now unshod feet. He wandered around the Impala, away from the open door, and leant against the hood.

It was incredibly stark. No sign of civilisation disturbed the landscape in any direction. He could almost have fancied that he and Dean were the only two on the planet. There was no moon, but he found he could see quite clearly; he'd never really noticed how much light was provided by the stars. But then he'd never experienced a place like this, such an utter lack of human influence. In other circumstances he might have found it beautiful.

He yawned, rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. He'd hoped getting out of the car would wear away the insomnia that plagued him, but although the weariness went deep he was as awake as ever. Through the open window he heard the soft sigh of regular breath, and guessed that Dean had rolled onto his side. It was almost funny, that of the two of them the one who couldn't sleep was not the one who'd spent the whole afternoon snoring in the passenger seat.

A flicker of movement jerked his head sideways, hunter instincts on immediate alert. Then, with a soft breath of amusement, he relaxed. Long, vigilant ears and a soft furry body frozen as its owner scrutinised the surroundings with big dark eyes; the cotton-tail rabbit almost reminded him of himself and Dean in careful reconnoitre before a hunt. Its nose quivered, but there was apparently no threat, and it darted away to the nearest patch of scrub.

Then rabbit number two emerged, and after a moment's pause bounded over to the same scrubby bush as its brother.

Sam caught himself up at the unconscious designation. Brother?

_I'll be giving them names next._

Grinning wryly at the thought, he slouched against the Impala and watched the rabbits. The Death Valley Diner was serving nothing but dried out grasses and leaves, but its patrons seemed more than happy. In the starlight Sam could see their activities quite clearly, and it was peculiarly satisfying. He seldom had the chance just to sit and study animals, chiefly because the creatures he observed were generally in need of a silver bullet or consecrated iron rounds; it felt good to have friendly intent, for once.

His eyes were beginning to droop, and he blinked drowsily. For the first time he felt as if he could actually sleep. Dean would probably have ascribed it to the boredom of watching animals eat; Sam just knew that he felt more relaxed. He lifted his head with the intention of returning to the backseat.

The movement in the bush was a shift in shadows, barely there. He tensed, focused on it; his eyes were gritty with dust and lack of sleep, and he knew his tired mind could conjure entities which weren't there – even the rabbits hadn't noticed anything – but he'd been a hunter for too long just to ignore it.

Then it stirred again, faint and stealthy, and he caught the briefest flash of light on a pair of dark eyes. Something slipped, noiseless, through the sparse desert vegetation, and this time he saw the outline of pointed ears.

Wrong shape for bobcat. Too small for coyote. In the split-second of thought he had no time to identify it, other than as a predator. It was after the rabbits, and they were oblivious.

Ecosystems... population dynamics... food chains... whatever it was needed to eat as much as they did. But those were his rabbits, and he wasn't going to stand by and watch them end up on a menu. He lunged forward in warning.

The ground disintegrated.

Lunge became sprawl, legs stumbling and arms thrusting forward as his body tilted. Sand was warm and flimsy and treacherous on a little incline that should have been no threat at all, a height that he could have negotiated in one giant stride if his balance had not been muddled.

A flash of white cottontail as the rabbits vanished...

A rustle of dusty scrub as their would-be killer melted away into the darkness...

The dull impact of collision, of flesh and hard unyielding rock.

Pain flared briefly, white and jagged.

Then it faded as darkness swallowed consciousness.

* * *

Heavy breathing faltered; something, some sound, maybe, had reached through the blanket of sleep, and awareness stirred momentarily.

"S'm..."

No-one responded to the mumbled monosyllable.

The speaker didn't notice.

Leather creaked as he shifted position on the bench seat, and moments later soft snores were all that broke the silence.

* * *

Pain.

He was aware of that before anything: sharp and relentless, a spear boring through his head. He could think of nothing else for a while and he lay still in a limp sprawl of hurt and half-consciousness.

_I think... I hit my head..._

The pain was not unfamiliar; he'd experienced it before, but he had no idea how it had happened this time. His thoughts were nebulous, drifting in a disorderly tangle in his mind.

The floor was uneven beneath him, an uncomfortable mix of soft smooth and solid irregular, and gradually he realised that it was not a floor at all. He was outside, and this was the ground he was lying on.

It was a hunt, then.

With the understanding of that came fear.

It was a hunt.

He was hurt.

Dean –

"Dean..." It was a slurred groan.

Pain spiked with the effort of speech, but not as badly as the alarm when there was no response. He was hurt, and Dean wasn't answering. Dean wasn't there.

Something had happened to Dean.

"_Dean!_"

Dean was hurt... Dean had been captured by whatever they were hunting... Dean was concussed and lost somewhere, or trapped in something... Dean was dying of blood loss...

He couldn't remember. Where they were. What they'd been hunting. How'd he'd come to be lying on the ground with the headache from hell.

He only knew he needed to find his brother.

Movement was more pain, but he fought past it, scrabbling blindly on the sand that slid under hands and knees. Strange darkness pulsed and ebbed at the edges of his vision. The horizon tilted.

_So dizzy..._

_Nauseous..._

He couldn't let it take him.

He couldn't abandon his brother to some unknown fate.

_Need to... need to find Dean..._

The gravelly ground was unforgiving. He stumbled, falling often but staggering to his feet again each time, only half-aware of his surroundings. The sweat of pain, of heat and exhaustion and intolerable effort, soaked dark hair and trickled red where it merged with leaking blood.

* * *

Overhead the stars gazed impassively at the erratic movements. They washed the scene with a thin glow, gleaming coldly on the silent black car and gently illuminating the ever-increasing distance between it and that lone faltering figure.

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_**Reviews are always greatly appreciated!**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! I tried to respond to everyone but the site was being a little funny so if you didn't get a reply – I'm really sorry! Your comments are greatly appreciated!**_

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His eyes ached. They were pinched to narrow slits, tender sunburnt skin wrinkling against the assault of the sun and the reflected glare from sterile white sand and rocks.

He was the only thing alive.

Anything that might once have tried to carve out an existence in the barrenness had long since given up. There were no animals, not even insects, no plants of any kind. He stumbled, and looked down reflexively; the little heap of bones at his feet was almost frightening in its testimony to the hostility of the environment.

He called out, but the single syllable grated harshly through cracked lips. His tongue was swollen from lack of moisture, and the name died feebly in the overheated air.

_Water._

He'd never even thought about it before, had just taken its presence for granted, and now it was the only thing on his mind.

_Water... need to..._

_Need to drink..._

He thought about it: clear liquid in a tall glass with condensation making a ring on a wooden table... standing in a shower, silvery drops cascading down over his head, over his body, cool and wet... falling onto his knees and burying his face in a little spring, feeling the soft tug as the current swirled... He laughed, a horrible rasping sound. And he wondered if he was perhaps going a little mad.

And then he saw it.

Not too far away, close enough that he didn't understand why he hadn't seen it before. Smaller than it should have been, although maybe that was the shimmering air playing tricks on his eyes. And still.

There was suddenly energy, strength that he thought had been sucked slowly from him with his body's moisture, and he ran, forgetting about water, forgetting about glasses and showers and springs and able only to think of the loose huddle on the sand, that limp figure ahead of him.

It was further away than it had looked. He was further away. He could see when his brother moved, when his head rolled so that he could see the familiar face. Green eyes were wide, with pain and exhaustion and fever.

"Help me..."

He ran harder.

"_Water..._"

He was gasping, stumbling, _fighting_ to reach him, but the distance didn't lessen.

"Water... _please..._"

He could hear him, that desperate broken whisper. But he couldn't get closer. He was still running when he saw the emotion fade, when resignation replaced fear. He was just too far to do anything when he saw the life flicker and fade. His brother's head lolled sideways, features slackening.

"No... _No_..."

And then, suddenly, he was there, falling to his knees and reaching out, catching hold of the hand which had stretched out for him but which was now limp. The green eyes were open.

Sightless.

"No... no... please..." It was his turn to beg, as shaking hands searched, as his fingers felt for the beat that would contradict what his eyes were telling him and his mind refused to accept. He was here now, he had reached his brother, he could stop it, help him...

There was no pulse.

There was no breath.

His brother was dead.

The heat and the drought had taken him, like it had taken everything else.

A cry rose in his throat, a harsh cracked scream of despair.

"_Sammy!_"

* * *

His eyes were open for a while before he realised it. Coarse jagged grains of sand pressed against his cheek where it rested on the ground, and he noted the discomfort vaguely. It was nothing when compared to the dull heavy thud in his head; somehow he knew that moving to escape the sand would be worse than enduring it.

After he recognised the irritation, though, he remembered.

The pain on moving was as bad as he'd expected. It detonated behind his eyes, flares and sparks of white brilliance even though he screwed them shut. It dropped him to his knees again, nausea defeating him, so that he lost what little he had in his stomach.

But he fought to his feet again. It was for Dean, after all. Somewhere in the midst of this hell of heat and blinding sun and arid waterlessness was his brother, and Sam was the only one who could help him. Sam had to help him, because if Dean wasn't found, he would die. And pain and thirst and nauseating dizziness were nothing compared to the horror of that.

He still had no idea of what had happened. Dimly he could remember waking before. He could remember the darkness, the sand and rocks – always the sand and rocks – and the pain. But _why_ and _what_ and _how_ were all a mystery.

It was a hunt.

He had to find Dean.

That was all he had.

"D-Dean..." He'd intended a shout, was vaguely surprised when it came out a croak.

And Dean didn't answer.

He struggled to his feet and stumbled on.

* * *

He was gasping, quick panicky breaths. His heart thudded in his chest.

"Sammy..." Not a shout this time, because he wasn't kneeling in sand and there was no dead brother lying limply in front of him. He was upright in the front seat of the Impala, one hand clutching the leather and the other rubbing jerkily at his face, at sweat that was only partly due to the sweltering heat.

_Just a freakin' nightmare..._

"Sam..." he mumbled again, slowly subsiding back against the seat.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd had such a vivid dream. He'd felt the heat, the prickle of sand and the burn of sweat dripping in his eyes, and the intense, painful thirst. And the horror and agony of Sam dying, in front of him, while all he could do was watch and fight uselessly to reach him.

He could still see the resignation in his brother's eyes just before they glazed over in death.

The heat, at least, was real. His t-shirt was drenched with perspiration. His bare arm incautiously brushed against a patch of the seat which had been in direct sunlight and he jerked it away with a startled gasp of pain. They _were_ in the desert: it was hotter than he'd ever experienced, and he could feel the gritty dryness in his mouth that spoke of the beginnings of dehydration.

But the part about Sam wasn't real.

He reached for the bottle of water he'd stashed in the foot-well the previous night and swallowed the now-warm liquid, closing his eyes briefly. Sam was okay. They were both okay, stuck without gas but unhurt. Bobby would be along soon enough.

Unseeing green eyes flashed before him, and a hand that reached in mute helplessness, and he shivered, despite the heat.

"Sam." He needed to see his brother. It was stupid to be so shaken by a dream; he would be embarrassed by his own weakness later. He was already embarrassed.

But he still wanted to see the expressive blue-green eyes and mobile face; Sam, alive and okay.

"Sam?" He sat up again, frowning a little at the lack of response. Sam wasn't in the backseat, but then that wasn't particularly remarkable: Sam had spent most of the previous evening sitting on the ground outside the car.

Avoiding Dean.

He stifled the little dig from his conscience at that thought, but there was a tinge of contrition in his voice as he opened the door.

"You better get inside, Sam, this sun'll burn you like a..." His voice trailed off. "Sam?"

There was no large little brother crouched against the side of the Impala.

_Oh. Right. Shade's on the other side at this time of day._

He slid across the seat and opened the other door.

Sam wasn't there either.

Sam wasn't around by the hood, or behind the trunk when Dean climbed out to check.

_He's obviously gone off to take a leak, or something. _

_Or something._

"Sam!" For the first time he raised his voice to something near a shout.

There was no answering yell.

_Stupid kid's sulking. Still upset with me from yesterday... wants to see me stressed..._

"Sam, this isn't funny! Get back here!" It came out angry, but the emotion with which he scanned his surroundings was not anger, and it was not anger that was accelerating his heart beat with every minute that passed.

Green eyes staring at him, glazed in death... tall lanky body slack and motionless...

_No._

That was just a dream, and it wasn't true. It wasn't going to happen.

"Not a good time to sulk, Sam! It's too hot to be outside!"

Sam was going to appear. Sam was just brooding, or sulking, or whatever, and any minute now he would come striding from whatever hiding place had been concealing him, with his hair even shaggier than usual from the dryness and his face morose, and he would scoff when he found out that Dean had been worried.

_Not that I am worried, of course._

He couldn't be worried, because to be worried meant acknowledging that something might have happened.

Something like Sam getting lost in the desert.

Something like Sam dying of dehydration and heat injury.

Something like Dean's dream.

* * *

He had given up calling for Dean.

There was never any response to his shouts, and he had no idea if that meant that Dean was not around to hear them, or if he was unable to answer. He'd yelled his brother's name until his voice was a painful rasp, but Dean had not appeared.

He couldn't imagine where he could be.

His eyes burned and ached with the unrelenting glare. The sun was right overhead, beating ruthlessly down on exposed flesh and reflecting off pale sand and burnished rock. His bare feet burned in contact with the overheated ground.

He wanted water. He could not remember ever being this desperate for something to drink. The longing went beyond thirst; his lips were cracked and his tongue thick in his mouth, and there were no tears to relieve the gritty sting of his eyes when he blinked. Even the perspiration that had soaked his t-shirt had been sucked away into the parched air long ago.

An uncontrollable stagger sent him to his knees, a bowed huddle in the sand. His hands hit the ground as he instinctively braced against the fall, and a choked cry broke from him at the fiery contact.

"Dean." His voice splintered on the word, but whether it was for his own need or his brother's he didn't know. Dean was missing. Dean needed Sam's help, and it was solely that conviction that kept Sam climbing to his feet each time he went down. But he was aware through his increasingly frayed consciousness that he was also in trouble. Dean wasn't the only one who needed his brother. But Dean couldn't help him. It was a vicious circle of nightmarish proportions.

"Dean..." It was only a whisper, an almost inaudible exhalation.

"Sam."

"Dean?" His head came up, eyes suddenly wide. "_Dean!_" Relief and fear lent him an artificial energy and he was on his feet in a rush, stumbling across to where the figure in the leather jacket lay unmoving on the ground.

He didn't understand how Dean had got there without him noticing. He didn't understand why he hadn't seen him until now. But it didn't matter. _Nothing_ mattered now, because Dean was there and Sam would look after him.

"Dean..." He collapsed to his knees again as he reached his brother, stretched out his hand. Dean was turned away from him, face tilted down into the sand, and he gripped one leather-clad shoulder and pulled him over onto his back.

His scream was hoarse and thin, but no less horrified for lack of strength. He scrabbled in the sand, panicking, but his sluggish muscles resisted his desperate struggles to get away and he went down in an awkward sprawl.

"No... No..." He curled over himself, hands pressed against his face. "_Dean_..." His fingers dug into his eyes but couldn't drive away the image that seemed burnt onto his brain, of decaying flesh clinging to exposed bones, of gaping sockets that had once housed animated green eyes. That familiar jacket now hung around a rotting corpse and fell open in front to reveal Dean's amulet resting against visible ribs.

He had to get away. He couldn't stay there, with that... _thing_... that had once been his brother. He was supposed to have saved him. He didn't understand, couldn't imagine what could have happened, but Dean was dead, horribly, grotesquely dead, and Sam hadn't been able to help him.

The heat couldn't prevent the sudden violent shiver.

"I'm sorry, Dean... I'm sorry..." It was a moan. Horror and revulsion and slow paralysing grief choked with the dust in his throat and a rasping sob shuddered through him. He'd failed, and now his brother was dead.

He lurched to his knees, almost falling again. _He had to get away_. His empty stomach churned at the movement and dizziness roared in his ears so that he had to thrust his hands out or collapse.

Involuntarily, reluctantly, his blurring vision went to where Dean – what was left of Dean – lay.

And then his breath quickened, and he crouched in the sand, staring in confusion and distress.

There was nothing there.

* * *

Dean didn't know what to do.

It was a rare predicament for him. He'd been brought up to be prepared, to know what he was fighting and to be ready for it. And natural audacity was sometimes even more useful than a careful plan when circumstances screwed him around.

But this... this was new.

He wasn't used to being at odds with nature. His enemies were always sentient, even if they were the stuff of nightmares; a well-placed shot or ancient ritual or good old-fashioned barbecue was enough to remove the threat.

But how did he kill a desert?

Sam was out there, somewhere, under the brassy sky and the ruthless sun. He might be just over the rise, just out of sight, or he might be miles away. He might be completely healthy and unharmed. Or he might be severely injured.

He might be dead.

And Dean had no idea. He didn't know if Sam was alright or not; where he was; why all this had happened and what could possibly have motivated his brother to walk off into the desert when he knew very well the dangers of such an action.

When Sam had fallen victim to the Benders, Dean had known what to do even when he had no idea where his brother was. There were structures set up, officials and systems to assist in finding missing persons, and a false identity had ensured his place in those systems, for at least long enough to locate Sam.

But there were none of those systems here. There were no security cameras, no police records. He didn't even have the use of his car. And while everything in him demanded that he go out and search, he was only too aware that leaving the Impala could be the signing of his own death warrant.

Once he lost sight of the car he was as much at the mercy of the environment as Sam was. He might wander around, disorientated and aimless, until he collapsed from dehydration and died in the sand. And he would thus ensure Sam's death as absolutely as if he'd killed him with his own hands.

There was always the chance that Sam would come back, that he'd gone for a walk along the road, over the rise, and that any minute now he'd reappear. Dean sat on the side of the driver's seat with his feet on the ground, and tried to convince himself that he believed that, and that for once the worst possible scenario wouldn't turn out to be reality.

_If we didn't have bad luck, we wouldn't have any luck at all..._

It was no surprise when Sam didn't appear.

Dean's forearms were an angry red from the sun, and his face felt stiff and hot. He hadn't been sitting there long, had not even been awake for more than an hour, and he was already feeling the effects of the climate. And Sam was out there, somewhere, unsheltered.

"_Help me..."_

"_Water... please..."_

It was his nightmare coming true, and he was helpless to stop it.

_Damn it, Sam... What the hell were you thinking?_

He couldn't just sit there, waiting for Sam to somehow find his way back. He had to do something, look for his brother. Everything within him rebelled at the idea of Sam being in trouble and Dean doing nothing to help him.

He thrust himself to his feet, and staggered. The clinging remnants of flu worsened momentary heat-induced vertigo, and the next moment he was on his knees, blinking, nausea a sullen threat.

_Real slick, Dean._

_Not a good time to faint like a girl._

He crouched there, not quite trusting his stomach to retain its contents. Sweat that wasn't entirely due to the heat beaded on his face, and he watched absently as it dripped down, into the sand, and disappeared.

_Bobby... Bobby'll know what to do._

It had been months since his father had died. It had been even longer before that since he'd really hunted with his father. He'd had to make his own decisions, choose his own course of action, for years.

And yet there was still something inside him that knew relief at the thought of someone older and more experienced being there. No-one could take the responsibility for Sam's welfare from him. He wouldn't have allowed it even if they could. But Sam was missing, and possibly in serious trouble, and Dean was painfully aware of how inadequate he was at that moment to help him.

He pulled himself to his feet against the Impala, more cautiously this time, and shaded his eyes as he glanced back along the road they had travelled the previous day. There was no sign of Bobby's pickup yet.

He turned his head and stared in the other direction again, some small, determinedly optimistic part of him hoping that he might see the familiar figure of his brother loping towards him.

He didn't.

He saw something else, though; something that drew his brows together in a frown, that sent him towards the front of the car where he squatted down and scrutinised the ground.

Sand had fallen, had spread out from where the bank of the road had collapsed. It was still fresh, in peaked clumps which wind hadn't had time to smooth, and pressed into it was a wide indentation.

An indentation such as might have been caused by a falling body.

And then his gaze fixed on something else, and the suffocating heat couldn't prevent the chill that settled low in his stomach.

"Son of a _bitch_..."

It was blood.

* * *

It was right there. Just a few feet away, lying in the sand. If he moved just a little, if he crawled those few feet, it would be his.

He could already feel the smooth plastic in his hands.

Trickles blurred over the surface where condensation had fused into little droplets. It was cold then, ice-cold; he would hold it against his face for a minute when he reached it. He would press that wonderful chill against his burning skin.

But only for a minute.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd had something to drink, even something warm. He couldn't really even imagine what water would be like in his mouth. His tongue was heavy, coated with thick dust and dried saliva. Moisture, wetness, flowing gently, trickling down his throat... he smiled at the heavenly thought, although it looked more like a grimace on his stiff sun-scorched face.

And once he'd had a drink, he would be stronger, able to walk further. Able to find Dean.

He lurched across from where he had slumped in the sand, reaching for the water bottle.

His hand closed over it.

And came up empty.

He blinked, confused, opening and closing his hand for a moment. It had been... he'd seen it... it was right –

_There_.

A few feet away, just out of his reach. Icy and glistening. His craving for it was a physical ache.

He lunged forward, a little more desperately this time. Both hands clutched at it.

And missed.

It was still there.

Still beyond his grasp.

His already harsh breathing accelerated. He needed that water. He had to have it.

He threw himself full-length on the sand and snatched at the bottle, fingers digging into the sand in his frantic attempts to hold onto it. He could almost feel it, he had it, his hands were closing around it...

Dry sand trickled from his empty fingers as he lifted them.

It was gone again.

It was there again, just beyond his reach.

"No..." It would have been a sob if he'd had any tears, if his voice wasn't a hoarse rasp. "_Please_..." He gazed hopelessly at it. It was so real, so solid and there. So desperately craved.

And he knew it would disappear again when he reached for it.

"Go away...just... go away!" He pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He couldn't bear it: seeing what he wanted, what he needed more than anything, but being unable to grasp hold of it. He was going to go mad, watching the water and trying to take it and never succeeding. He was going to die.

"Dean..."

_I have to find you and I can't... _

_I'm sorry..._

_Help me... _

He pulled his hands away from his face, kept his eyes averted from where he knew the water was beckoning falsely.

Dean was lying on the sand, only a few feet away.

"Dean!"

He almost fell, scrabbling in the sand to reach his brother. This was real. This had to be real. Somehow, while he'd been fighting to get the water, Dean had found him. Dean had heard him calling and had come. He was facing away, on the ground which meant he was probably hurt, but it was going to be fine. They were together, and Sam could help him now.

He gripped the hunched shoulder and pulled Dean onto his back.

Shirt, jeans, the front of the leather jacket... they were black with blood. It had streamed from the horrendous gaping slashes across Dean's chest and abdomen, where internal organs were visible; had spilled from his nose, from his ears and slack mouth. It had dried in little trickles from his eyes: they were open, staring at Sam in sightless accusation.

"No... _Dean_..." His breath hitched in a shredded whimper.

_Dean's dead..._

_I didn't find him._

_I couldn't save him._

_Dean's dead and it's all my fault..._

He pushed himself away, lurching to his feet in an awkward flail of arms and legs.

_I'm sorry, Dean... I tried to save you..._

He staggered, uncoordinated legs tangling as the landscape tilted drunkenly before his gaze.

Then he went down again, and this time he didn't get up.

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_**Feedback is always greatly appreciated!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback! I love hearing your thoughts...**_

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There wasn't even that much of it: brown now, a little splatter of drops on the fist-sized rock and even fewer on the sand which had sucked it in eagerly while it was still liquid. He might not have recognised it if blood hadn't been something with which he was only too familiar.

He'd certainly seen worse. He'd seen Sam's blood before, more times than he cared to remember; seen it on Sam's clothes, on the ground where it had spilled. He'd seen it leaking from claw marks and bites and even the occasional bullet or knife wound. He was usually the one who cleaned up the damage. On a hunt, this much blood would have been nothing.

But this wasn't a hunt. And Sam wasn't with him, to assure him that there was nothing wrong and to be checked over when Dean didn't believe him.

Up to that point Dean had still been clinging to the possibility that there was some unalarming explanation for Sam's absence. He'd been worried, but he'd somehow still imagined that Sam would appear, unharmed, from wherever he'd been concealing himself.

He hadn't realised how much he'd unwittingly been relying on that until the incontrovertible evidence showed him otherwise.

"Damn it, Sammy..." He dragged his hand over his face. A zebra lizard that had been sunning itself nearby gave him an indignant glance and disappeared into a little pile of rocks.

The collapsed bank of sand, the body-length depression... it was obvious that Sam had fallen and hurt himself. The position of the rock in relation to his fall made the site of the injury only too clear.

A gash which produced that amount of blood would have been no more than an irritation anywhere else. But a head wound was serious for reasons other than the volume of blood lost. For the first time Dean saw why Sam might have walked away into the desert.

And the understanding was no comfort at all.

He rocked back on his haunches and stared out into the broiling air, across the landscape. Somewhere, out there, Sam was wandering, injured and confused. Or maybe he had collapsed, and was lying unconscious on the sand, in the sun.

Limp, unmoving body...

Slack hand that reached uselessly for help...

It was his nightmare.

It had always been his nightmare, the thing he feared more than any of the creatures he hunted; Sam hurt... Sam dying. And Sam _would_ die, if Dean didn't find him, because no-one could stay out in this heat without water and expect to survive.

Sam would die, alone.

"_As a companion you really suck..."_

Completely unbidden, the memory swam into his consciousness. He saw Sam's face again, as he'd seen it just after he'd thrown those words at his brother: eyes wide and pained, mouth twisting.

_Idiot._

_You grade A, super-freakin'-moron._

He'd actually meant it, when he said it: he'd been so irritated with his brother, with the car and the gas and Sam's disapproval of the Vegas plan. He hadn't exactly intended to hurt him, but it hadn't really bothered him when he'd seen that that had been the result. At that point he _had_ felt that Sam was lacking as a companion. He'd wished that he'd been more careful, had followed the road signs more carefully, had replaced the gas, had not moped and growled and sulked about them having some fun.

And right now there was nothing he'd like better than to be sitting next to a bad-tempered Sam.

Then, he'd been spoilt. He'd been happy to complain about Sam and his ways, because Sam was right there.

Now that he didn't have that companionship he was brutally aware of how much he wanted it.

He wanted to see Sam staring at him disapprovingly, or rolling his eyes when Dean made an inappropriate comment. He wanted to hear him whining about Dean's food or dirty clothes or... or _anything_. It was all part of what made him Sam. It went along with the concern Sam always felt for the victims on their hunts, with the way he worried when Dean was hurt, with how he had sat up with his delirious brother over the last week, night after night, just so that Dean wouldn't wake up alone. He could be a pain in the ass, but he was Dean's little brother. Dean's best friend.

And if Dean didn't find him, he would die thinking that Dean didn't want him around.

* * *

His feet hurt.

He thought that perhaps he wasn't thinking very clearly. He saw people, friends from Stanford, some of the nameless individuals they'd encountered on their hunts; sometimes they spoke to him, but most of them ignored him. He wasn't quite sure what they were doing there. They couldn't all be looking for Dean, surely? Because that was the only reason to be in this place.

He'd been walking for days.

He'd been walking forever.

That was probably why his feet hurt so badly.

He looked down at them. They were far away, too far to see clearly. His legs stretched out until he couldn't see the ground at all. He was dizzy, his head floating and spinning, up there at that tremendous height... and then suddenly the sand was close again, and he could see his feet, angry red and swollen, and they were getting bigger and bigger and there was nothing but the sand and the rocks and his feet in his face.

A long time later he found himself on the ground.

_Dean..._

He needed to find Dean.

He had to save Dean.

If this was how Sam was feeling, Dean must be infinitely worse. What if Dean was also in this heat, in this fiery burning universe of thirst and pain and blinding sun? What if Dean was wandering around, lost and hurt? Sam was the only one who could help him, and if he didn't, Dean would die.

He needed to find water, and find Dean, and give him the water.

He struggled to his feet, and almost collapsed again. He groaned, the sound dull and cracked, small in the vast uncaring expanse.

_Feet... __**hurt**__..._

For a moment he wanted to give in to the pain, to the thirst and dizziness. He just wanted to fall over and lie there. He wanted to give up.

But Dean was depending on him. Dean needed him.

He could do this... _had_ to do this. For Dean.

His bare feet left bloodied imprints in the sand. He stumbled on until he couldn't walk. Then he crawled.

* * *

Dean had expected that it would be some time before Bobby arrived. The older hunter still had to dispatch his poltergeist, and it was a fair distance to drive. But as the sun reached its zenith and slowly began to descend, he found himself fighting a sense of panic.

Bobby should have been with him by now.

Dean had been relying on that. He been expecting Bobby's pick-up from around midday, and it was the one thing keeping him from doing something stupid. He'd decided not to go rushing out into the desert to look for Sam, because he knew Bobby would come and then they could figure something out that would not result in the end of both Winchesters.

But Bobby didn't come. Dean's eyes grew red and painful from squinting into the distance, and the hard lump of fear in his chest grew bigger each time the empty road stared back.

He couldn't just sit there. He couldn't just wait passively for Bobby to arrive, while Sam was lost and hurt and in who knew what condition out there in the desert. He didn't have the luxury of time. Sam didn't have that luxury.

He twisted around from where he was sitting on the side of the driver's seat, reached for another bottle from the chest and swallowed a blissful gulp of cold water. Then, stricken, he stared at the plastic container.

_I've been drinking... how many bottles... while Sam is out there without water. _

Blue-green eyes, wide and pleading...

"_Water... __**please**__..."_

His fist clenched around the bottle, crushing the plastic, as his breath caught involuntarily.

_Sammy..._

Dean might die if he left the car to search for Sam.

Sam _would_ die if he didn't.

He had to go after his brother.

It was slipping into evening, but the sun was still unmerciful. Even sitting still, he'd been perspiring freely; walking in the sand, unsheltered, soon had him drenched with sweat. Every breath was a discomfort as the hot air parched his throat and lungs, and he could feel the prickle that would soon be pain of sun-exposed flesh on his arms and face.

And Sam had been out in this all day.

"Sam!" His yell drifted dully, and was swallowed in the stillness without an echo.

Without a response.

He walked as far as he dared, until the Impala was a shimmering blur in the distance, but there was no sign of Sam. He called his brother's name until the sound was a rasp. Sam didn't answer. Eventually he stopped, straining his eyes painfully into the haze.

How far could someone walk with a concussion, anyway?

_Further than this, maybe._

Sam might be ahead of him, just out of sight, and if Dean went a little further he would find him.

But then again, Sam might not be near here at all. And if Dean got any further from the car he wouldn't be able to see it, and it was the only navigational tool he had. He swung round, and returned to the Impala. But his chest ached at the possibility that he was leaving his brother behind.

The Impala was solid and familiar, reassuring in its bulk. He blinked hard as he neared it, his eyes burning unexpectedly.

Sam should have been there. Sam should have been sitting in the passenger seat, head bent over a book, mouth pursed in concentration and dark hair flopping in his eyes. Sam should have been looking up at him with disapproval and forcing water on him, complaining about how Dean didn't take care of himself and how he'd just had flu.

"_...if you don't stop hovering, I'm gonna deck you..."_

Well, Sam wasn't hovering now.

And the only one Dean wanted to deck was himself.

"I don't know what to do, Sammy..." His voice quivered. He was too worried to notice.

Dizziness blurred his vision for a moment and he squeezed his eyes shut. Walking in the sun hadn't done his convalescence any favours. He hadn't even walked that far, and his mouth was already sticky with thirst again.

This time, though, he hesitated about having a drink. He couldn't afford to get dehydrated, not if he wanted to be any use to Sam. But Sam would need all the water they had if – _when_ – Dean found him. Every swallow that Dean took was one less for Sam.

He rested one hand on the back of the seat, frowning at the chest.

And then he saw the m&m's.

* * *

Bobby lifted his cap and resettled it after pushing his hair back with one hand. Perspiration squelched unpleasantly around the band, leaving a damp red imprint where his skin protested.

He was no stranger to hot weather, but this was something else entirely.

Dust speckled the glass in front of him. His eyes were thin slits, narrowed against the glare of the evening sun reflected from the pale sand all around, and he could feel the uncomfortable warmth on his left arm even through the closed window.

He would have preferred to have done this at night. He would have liked to have left earlier, to have finished the hunt and been on his way by the previous evening. But that had been one stubborn poltergeist. He winced, unconsciously rubbing a bruised shoulder.

_Who would have thought an antique porcelain dinner service could make such good missiles? _

He'd been tempted, after the poltergeist had departed in a blinding flash, to wait until the following evening. Dean had assured him that they had water and food; they'd be uncomfortable, but not in any danger. And it would certainly be easier to make this trip in the relative cool of night.

He huffed a breath, shaking his head. Dean had been less cocky than usual when he'd phoned, almost embarrassed.

_As he damn well should be... breaking down in Death Valley!_

He hadn't managed to get a real explanation out of the older Winchester as to exactly how they'd managed to accomplish that. Dean's answers had been evasive, and it hadn't helped that the reception was so poor. Half of the conversation had been lost in crackles and whistles, and the call had eventually cut out altogether.

It was only once Bobby was already on his way that he'd realised that he wasn't sure where the boys were.

He reached for the bottle of tepid water lying on the passenger seat. He'd bought all the water the gas station had; several six packs were stacked in the back. Dean would undoubtedly have some smartass comment to make when he saw them.

Well, Bobby had plenty to say back, and none of it complimentary.

If he hadn't decided to leave straight after the dispatching of the poltergeist, it would have been even longer before he discovered that he couldn't find the Winchesters. It would already have been evening before he spent a fruitless hour trying to connect a call to Dean's phone, and then to Sam's. It would then have been midnight before he thought of contacting Ash.

But he _had_ left immediately, although even he couldn't have said why, and thanks to Ash and his hacking skills he had GPS co-ordinates for the boys' position.

Now he just had to get to the morons.

* * *

"Dean... _Dean..._"

It was a mantra. It was a threat and a promise, what he was fighting not to lose.

He was embarrassed by how much he wanted his brother. Or he would have been, if he'd had the capacity to feel anything but fear. He wanted to see Dean, alive and whole and healthy. He wanted to relax and let Dean take charge.

He was so tired.

"Dean..." His throat was too dry for more than a whisper.

_Need to..._

_Dean..._

He was on his side on the sand.

He couldn't lie there. He had to find Dean.

He had to get up.

He made it to his hands and knees, but there was nothing left within him and his head dropped, blackness lapping at the edges of his vision.

_Can't..._

_Have to..._

"Sam!"

His eyes flickered. Hope flared, a tiny indefatigable flame.

"Sam!"

It was the one sound that could overcome exhaustion and dizziness and pain. He raised his head, squinting into the glare.

Dean was walking across the sand towards him.

"D-Dean?"

Dean was okay. He was on his feet, walking, not hurt. _Alive_.

"Dean... you're okay..."

He had to tilt his head up to see his brother when Dean finally reached him. For once Dean was taller than him, standing there while Sam was crouched on the ground.

"You're okay..." he muttered again. Dean was there, with him, looking unharmed and fine, and Sam couldn't quite grasp it, or feel the relief. He needed to hear Dean say it. He needed the reassurance.

"No."

A harsh breath caught in his throat. He blinked.

"Wha...what?"

"No. I'm not okay."

"But –"

"You didn't find me, Sam. You let me get hurt."

"N-no –"

"You let me die."

"No!"

"I would have been fine if you'd just found me. You could have saved me. You failed, Sam."

His mouth opened, but he couldn't speak. He stared, stricken, and then his head dropped as the truth of what Dean was saying went home.

"You're useless, Sam... you're a useless hunter, and a useless companion, and a useless brother."

"No... Dean... _please_..."

"Please what? Please don't say it? It's the truth, Sam... you could've helped me, but you just didn't try hard enough. I'm dead... and it's all your fault... it's all your fault... you're pathetic."

His arms gave way under him so that he collapsed into the sand.

"No, D-Dean... no... I'm sorry..."

"Sorry's not good enough. I don't want you, Sam... I'm better off without you."

"_Dean..._"

"It should have been you, Sam. You should have died. Not me."

He curled his arms over his face. Agonised, tearless sobs shuddered through him.

It was true. He had failed Dean. He hadn't found him, and he hadn't helped him, and now Dean was dead. Dean was better off without him. He was a useless brother.

"_... as a companion you really suck..."_

"Don't... don't..."

Dean didn't say anything.

After a while Sam's arm slid away from his eyes, and he peered hazily up. Dean was gone, as he had been all the other times, and Sam wasn't sure he'd ever really been there.

He didn't know what was real anymore.

He didn't know if Dean was alive, or dead.

But Dean didn't want him. That much was true. It echoed in his mind as a memory from before. And for the first time he just didn't have the strength to get up again.

One arm reached out, desperate and hopeless, but there was nothing to hold on to.

* * *

Dean ran his forearm over his face. He knew that sweat was a good sign – it meant he wasn't dehydrated – but it stung where it dripped into his eyes. He paused, glancing behind him, and was pleased when he could clearly make out the blue dot on the ground.

The Impala was a vague blur in the distance.

Fear simmered just below the surface. He was worried – _afraid_. Sam had been out in the desert, unprotected, for hours. He was hurt. Dean had no idea where he was.

But for the first time since finding the blood, there was determination keeping the dread at bay. He was doing something. He wasn't just waiting for Bobby to arrive. He'd never been very good at sitting around patiently doing nothing, especially where Sam was concerned. Now at last he had a plan.

He wasn't sure how much longer he had before the sun finally disappeared beneath the horizon, but as long as his flashlight battery lasted he was fine. He could go all night. He would go all night if he had to.

The m&m's would see to that.

He glanced back at the Impala, and then turned away from it and started walking again. From one hand dangled the large bag of chocolates; the other dipped in and out, dropping the little brightly-coloured spheres on the ground. This was the third time he'd gone out in a different direction, and each time he'd found his way back to the car via the m&m trail he'd laid down.

Sam would probably have been able to tell him which children's fairy tale involved laying down a trail of food. Sam would probably have recounted the entire story.

The m&m Dean was holding disintegrated as his fingers tightened convulsively around it.

"Sammy..."

Dean teased him about his brain, his geek-boy ability to remember random and useless facts. He ripped Sam off for liking fancy coffee, and preferring salad to cheeseburgers, and being buzzed after two beers. And Sam rolled his eyes and huffed, and grinned to himself when he thought Dean wasn't looking.

"_...as a companion you really suck..."_

Dean hadn't been teasing then. And Sam hadn't grinned to himself. Dean destroyed another m&m as he remembered the hurt in big green-blue eyes.

Right now he'd happily watch a documentary, eat lettuce and drink decaf if Sam was doing it with him.

Absently he rubbed his fingers against his jeans, leaving a smear of soft chocolate, and reached into the bag for another, glancing without thinking behind him towards the Impala.

It wasn't visible anymore.

His eyes flickered, and for an instant he knew an instinctive alarm. It was just him, all alone, in this wilderness. No Impala, no Sam... no _anything_. Just rocks, and dusty little bushes, and sand, everywhere he looked.

Plastic crackled in his fingers, and he forced himself to relax.

_M&m's, dude... that's why you're dropping them, remember?_

_Get on with it, Dean. You don't have time to stand here freaking out._

He pressed his thumb and forefinger into his temples, sucked in a deliberate breath, and dropped another chocolate.

And then the whole bag slid unheeded from his fingers and hit the ground with a soft crunch.

"Sam..."

He stumbled as he ran, boots catching on the awkward terrain. He almost fell, but caught himself reflexively. His breath came sharp and quick, less from heat and exertion than from the heavy hard knot of fear that was suddenly choking him.

"_Sammy!_"

He'd seen it. This was his nightmare. But this time it was real, the heat and the sand and the burning sun, and the limp huddle that was his brother, unmoving on the ground, one arm stretched out uselessly in a last desperate plea for help.

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**_Please let me know what you think :-)_**


	5. Chapter 5

_**I gravel at your feet at the length of time it's taken for me to update this. I haven't even got a big excuse... just a whole lot of little ones that all worked together. Life is rather mad right now!**_

**_Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed so far, and particularly those who I can't thank in person! Your comments are GREATLY appreciated!_**

_**SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN **_

The sand was hot enough to hurt through the knees of his jeans. He'd gone down hard, almost falling in his haste, hands reaching for his brother before the rest of his body caught up.

"Sam?"

Sam was on his side, head tilted down. One forearm, scarlet and blistered, hid his face.

"Sammy!" Dean's hands were rough, ungentle as he gripped one slumped shoulder and pulled. Sam flopped onto his back, ragdoll limp. His arm slid loosely away from his face. His eyes were shut; Dean had half-expected them to be open in sightless accusation. He wasn't sure if that would have been worse.

"Sam... Sam, talk to me... wake up..." His fingers groped for a pulse, quivered against Sam's neck. "Sammy!"

_Don't be dead please don't be dead you can't be dead..._

"Don't do this to me, Sam, don't you dare do this..."

And there it was. Hard, so that he couldn't understand how he hadn't felt it before, and rapid. Too rapid. But it was a heartbeat.

The gritty dust was making his eyes burn.

He grasped hold of his brother, hauled him up until Sam was slumped against him, heavy and lax in unconsciousness. One hand cupped the back of Sam's neck where his head tipped over Dean's arm and pulled him forward so his face pressed against Dean's shirt.

"Okay... okay... I gotcha, Sammy... you're gonna be fine... I gotcha now..." He was muttering aloud, but if the reassurances weren't for his brother there was no-one else around to hear them. There was no-one else around to catch Dean Winchester out in a massive chick-flick moment.

Sam's face was an angry, unnatural red, and burning hot against his palm. Short, shallow breaths rasped from cracked lips. His arms were hanging, trailing on the ground, and Dean pulled them up so that they weren't touching the hot sand. Where Sam's t-shirt hadn't protected him the sun had been unmerciful on unacclimatised skin.

Awkwardly, one arm still hugging Sam against him, he reached for the bottle of water he'd brought. It lay on its side in the sand where he'd dropped it in his rush to reach his brother, and he caught it up and wrestled it open with his teeth. Sam wasn't sweating, and he'd been out in this heat without water all day. He had to be badly dehydrated.

"Okay, here you go... here you go, Sammy..." He tilted the bottle carefully so that a thin trickle dribbled into Sam's mouth. Sam was unconscious; Dean didn't know if he'd be able to swallow anything, and he didn't want him to breathe the water in. It would be Winchester luck to drown in the middle of Death Valley.

The harsh breathing hitched. A quiver ran through the lax body, and for a moment Dean almost panicked as Sam choked, water spilling from the side of his mouth. But his throat muscles were working; Dean heard the wet gurgle as he swallowed, and he knew that at least some of the liquid had gone down the right way.

The shaggy head stirred against his chest, and he saw Sam's jaw tilt a little, mouth opening. Even in unconsciousness Sam had been aware of the relief of the water, of the wetness on parched skin, and now he reached for it instinctively. Desperately. One shallow breath splintered into a moan, deep in his throat.

The dust was getting into Dean's eyes again.

"It's okay... it's okay... here you go..." He held the bottle to Sam's mouth again. It was a bizarre déjà vu, a forgotten familiarity of twenty-something years when a small Dean would hold a smaller Sammy in just this way.

"_Drink up, Sammy..." _

_Little chubby hands waving, clutching at the bottle... a soft cherub mouth sucking eagerly... dark eyes intent on the child's face above him..._

Baby Sammy had been tinier, but perhaps not more helpless than adult Sam right now.

Less water spilled this time. Dean's eyes slid to the streaks down the side of Sam's face where blood had leaked. The actual wound was hidden, by hair stiff with sand and dried blood, so that he couldn't gauge its seriousness. Head wounds always bled like a bitch, but that Sam had apparently been confused enough to wander off into the wilderness suggested a concussion.

But right now he was more concerned with ensuring his little brother didn't die of dehydration. His gaze returned to the bottle in his hand, and to the precious water that dripped onto the ground. Sam could hardly be blamed for spilling it, but Dean hated to see it wasted; into his mind came an image of the two bottles left in the car, and he knew they were woefully insufficient.

And then dusty eyelashes flickered, and he forgot the water.

"Sam? Sammy?"

* * *

It wasn't Dean.

It looked like Dean; sounded like him, too, the way he said "Sammy", with sharp urgency bleeding into fear.

But it had looked like Dean before. And it had been Dean's voice that had said that he didn't want Sam, that he was a pathetic brother and a useless companion, and that he was the one who should have died.

Those Deans had all gone, just when Sam was convinced they were really there; Dean had become something hideous and dead, and then had vanished. They hadn't been real. Or maybe they had been real, and something worse: Dean's spirit, and Dean was dead.

So no. This wasn't Dean.

He could feel the rub of cheap fabric against his cheek where it rested against not-Dean's chest. He could even hear not-Dean's heart thudding next to his ear, faster than normal, as if its owner was scared.

"Sammy!"

It was speaking again, and a hand was touching his face, his cheek and forehead, before pressing against his neck. His Dean wasn't into the touchy-feely sort of thing. His Dean didn't do hugging, or face-patting.

It couldn't be Dean. And he'd been disappointed so many times before.

But it felt real. The blissful wetness of water trickling over his swollen tongue... it tasted real.

And he wanted it to be real. More than anything, desperately, to the point of tears, if he'd had any, he wanted it to be real. He wanted to be with Dean, not to have to worry about his brother's fate, not to have to think about pain and thirst and fear. He wanted to be safe.

This was all going to disappear. Any moment now, he'd open his eyes and it would be gone, and he'd be left with the heat and the sun, to struggle to his feet and stagger across the sand until he collapsed again. And then some other Dean would arrive to torment him. He should fight it now, let it know that he knew it wasn't real and that he wasn't that easily fooled.

But he wanted it. And he was just too tired to resist it. Even if it vanished, for a few seconds it would feel real; for a few seconds he'd be in the safest place he could imagine.

He turned his head and buried his face against sweaty cotton-covered muscle.

* * *

Even from a distance Bobby could see the dust that eclipsed the Impala's customary shine, and he grinned wryly. He'd heard the exasperation in Dean's voice, even with the very poor connection, and that had been twenty-four hours previously; he'd undoubtedly be ready to murder someone by now.

Someone being Sam, probably, since there was nobody else around. At _all_. Bobby was not one to object to a little solitude, but this was overegging the pudding. Since he'd turned off the main road an hour previously, he'd passed no-one. He loved those boys as if they were his own, but what in hell had possessed them to drive this way? And with next to no gas? Grown men and fine hunters they might be, but they'd be getting a piece of his mind.

Once they were safely in some motel having drunk about a gallon of water each.

He'd somehow expected to see the two familiar silhouettes in the front seat, and for a moment he was disconcerted when he made out neither. The Impala looked lonely. It looked abandoned, with no apparent sign of life anywhere.

But then again, this wasn't exactly a hub of exciting activity. About the only thing the boys could do was sleep, and in this heat it was probably all they had energy for. Lying down, one in the front and one in the back, they wouldn't be visible from where he was. He stepped on the gas a little, and reached the other vehicle in a cloud of dust.

He paused briefly, frowning at the complete lack of response to his arrival from the direction of the Impala. The pickup was not exactly stealthy. Dean might sleep through the landing of a squadron of fighter jets, but Sam...

The hinges creaked as he pushed the door open, but he ignored them.

"Dean?" His boots crunched on the rocky sand. "Sam?" He had his hand raised to knock on the driver's window before he saw that the black car was empty.

Bobby's footsteps were a little quicker as he made his way round to the front.

There were no Winchesters sitting behind the car in its meagre shade.

"Dean!"

His shout drifted in the stifling air, and was swallowed. There was no answering call.

There was no sign of either Dean or Sam anywhere.

Bobby lifted his cap and wiped sweat from his hairline with the back of one hand. Then he hurled the cap to the ground.

"Dammit, Dean!"

He'd told them to sit tight. He'd told them not to wander off or do anything stupid.

This was monumentally stupid.

Bobby had no doubt about what had happened. He was later than he'd intended, later than he'd promised, what with the poltergeist, and then not being able to find the boys. They'd grown impatient – or in all likelihood, _Dean_ had grown impatient – and decided to try to walk out.

If they had appeared at that moment he would have had no qualms about decking them both.

"Morons... stupid asses..."

Anger was a good disguise for fear.

After they'd felt his fist, there might have been some hugging. Because he was afraid now. He'd been uneasy since he'd taken Dean's call, and concerned when he'd discovered just how far off the main road they'd gone. But now he was acknowledging it for the first time. And he was just plain scared.

Dean and Sam were superb hunters, extremely capable at dispatching spirits and demons and what-have-you. But the desert? That was something else entirely. It was something they hadn't been trained to handle.

He bent to pick up his cap.

And paused.

* * *

Sam didn't seem to be really aware of what was happening. There'd been a momentary glimmer of something like recognition in the inflamed eyes, but they'd drifted shut almost immediately. The feeble tension in his muscles, though, told Dean he wasn't completely unconscious.

"Sammy?" His hand moved, palm against face and forehead. "Sam..."

A quiver ran over Sam's face that might have been pain or discomfort or something else that Dean couldn't identify, and his breathing stuttered. Then his head turned, a movement that was too deliberate to be the simple relaxation of fatigue, and he burrowed his face into Dean's t-shirt.

A breath caught in Dean's throat.

Toddler and child Sammy had sobbed nightmare fears into his big brother's pyjama top. Eleven-year-old Sammy had nestled against him like that while their father stitched up the bloody gashes left by a garou's claws. Fourteen-year-old Sam had clutched him, trembling arms gripping in terror and relief and face completely hidden in Dean's leather jacket, after being the captive of an Old One for more than a week. But not since then. Sam hadn't done that in years.

Dean didn't want to think about what he must have gone through to be doing it now.

He dropped his hand to Sam's jaw, fingers sliding around to chafe gently at the back of his neck. Limp strands of dark hair were gritty under his fingertips.

"It's okay, Sammy... it's okay... I gotcha now... I'm gonna take care of you now, you hear me? You're gonna be fine." He blinked fiercely.

_Friggin' dust getting in my eyes..._

Sam shivered against him, despite the heat of the fever that Dean could feel right through the fabric barrier. He didn't respond or give any sign that he could hear what Dean was saying.

"It's okay, Sam..."

It wasn't.

Sam needed water. He needed to be out of the heat and the sun.

They had water, and shelter, back at the car. And if both of them had been completely healthy, it might have been enough. But Sam was feverish, severely dehydrated, probably concussed. Deep down, where he couldn't lie even to himself, Dean knew he needed professional medical treatment. Two and a half bottles of tepid water and the black metal heat trap that was the Impala would be pathetically inadequate.

But there was no gas. There was no way out, no way of getting to a hospital. Until Bobby arrived, pathetically inadequate was all Dean had.

He reached for the almost empty bottle again, and turned Sam's face to give him more water. For a moment Sam resisted his efforts, but at the touch of the liquid on his skin he relaxed a little, and even managed to swallow some.

"Yeah, there you go... that's good, Sammy." Dean could see green slits where Sam's eyes were half-open again, although he had no idea of how conscious he was. "Sam? You with me? Sammy?"

Sam's eyes shifted lethargically. It wasn't much, but it was a response.

"We need to get back to the car, bro. You think you could walk if I helped you?" He hadn't expected an enthusiastic affirmation, and he didn't get one. He wasn't even sure why he'd spoken.

But his voice was the only distraction from the oppression of the environment and the exigency of their situation. It was the only sound that could drown out the increasingly harsh rasp of Sam's hurried breathing.

If he talked he could pretend that he wasn't afraid.

"Okay, c'mon, Sammy..." He dragged one flaccid arm over his shoulder and gripped Sam's wrist. "I'm gonna pull you up, okay? We'll just go slowly." His arm tightened around his brother. "On three... one..."

On "two", he straightened, hauling Sam up with him.

With a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a whimper, Sam crumpled against him, suddenly completely limp. Dean cursed as the unexpected weight almost sent them both sprawling.

"Hey... hey! Sam!"

Sam's face had fallen onto his shoulder and he tipped it back. Eyes shut... mouth slack... this time Sam really was unconscious.

With more haste than elegance he lowered his brother back down.

"What the hell, Sam..." His fingers were rough with anxiety against the carotid pulse, and its frenetic pace was not much comfort. Was it the concussion... the dehydration... the fever...? Maybe Sam had fallen and damaged himself internally... or maybe there was bleeding on the brain as a result of the head injury? He pictured the Impala and the complete desolation of its setting, and swallowed hard as panic threatened.

"Okay. Okay." He couldn't think like that. Right now there was nothing he could do about any of those nightmare possibilities. He had to get Sam back to the Impala, and try to bring him round, and cool him down, and rehydrate him. As to the rest, he'd just have to wait until Bobby arrived.

And pray, to a God he didn't believe in, that that wouldn't be long.

* * *

The small red sphere that had been unidentifiable at a distance was absurdly incongruous when he realised what it was. It lay in his palm, warm and flecked with sand crystals, the white _m_ proudly proclaiming its identity.

It announced "Dean Winchester was here" as clearly as if the words had been scrawled in the sand.

Bobby eyed it thoughtfully. His gaze went back to the ground, and the crease between his eyebrows deepened when he saw another m&m a short distance away, blue this time. Two steps took him to where it rested. He didn't pick this one up; he'd already seen the green blob of colour even further along, and now he could see the pattern.

In his long-ago childhood Bobby Singer had read fairy tales too.

"Okay, Hansel and Gretel," he muttered. This didn't really fit with his previous conclusion, that Dean and Sam had decided to walk out. But then again, he'd long since stopped being surprised when the Winchesters did the unexpected.

And at this point, their motives didn't interest him as much as the fact that he now had the means to track them. He returned to his truck, absently jiggling the m&m in his hand, and took two bottles of water from the back seat. After a judicious glance at the sky, he reached for a flashlight as well.

The m&m trail was not difficult to follow. The brightly-coloured chocolates stood out against the sand. He wondered how long it had been since they'd been dropped, and guessed it couldn't have been long; they would have been carried off by animals, or covered by sand, if they'd lain there for hours. He was surprised that they hadn't melted.

_Entrusting their lives to m&m's… stupid idjits!_

His shadow was long as he walked. The sun was far down on the horizon. He could still see clearly but he knew that wouldn't last: night was coming, and even with the weight of the flashlight in his hand anxiety skittered through him at the thought. Despite the lateness of the hour, the heat was still almost unbearable. The air shimmered, creating pools of water where none existed and warping the landscape. When he glanced behind him he could still see the blur of the cars, merged by distance into one.

At first startled sight he thought it was something supernatural. Top-heavy and bizarrely distorted, the figure wavered across the sand, features a vague blur. For one panicked moment he cursed himself for leaving all his weapons in the truck, for being out here completely unarmed. Then commonsense returned, and he began to run towards it.

_One_ figure: in no possible way was that a good thing.

With closer proximity the single shape became a man, staggering under the burden of another slung over his shoulder. Lack of inches and long floppy hair told Bobby that Dean was the one on his feet, but the older Winchester's head was down, his arm clamped tightly around his brother's legs, and his face was hidden.

"Dean!"

That Dean had been completely unaware of Bobby's presence was evident by the way he shied violently at his voice. His head jerked back, eyes wide, and he would have overbalanced if Bobby had not caught hold of his arm.

"Bobby!" It came out as a gasp. "You... you scared the crap outta me!"

"Yeah, I noticed." Concern leached some of the customary gruffness from Bobby's voice. "What happened to Sam?"

Dean scrubbed his free hand over his face.

"He... uh... long story. He... he needs help, Bobby. It's heat stroke or something... he's dehydrated to hell."

"Heat stroke?" Bobby stared at him, fear and anger bubbling up within. "Dehydration? And I suppose that possibility didn't occur to you when you decided to walk out?"

Dean blinked.

"What?"

"It's not called Death Valley for nothing, you stupid moron! You left the car, went wandering off into the desert in the full heat of the sun – what did you expect would happen? You knew I was coming –"

Dean's mouth went tight, his nostrils flaring. He lifted his chin.

"You have no idea what happened. I said it was a long story, and maybe once you've pulled your head out of your ass I'll tell it to you, but right now Sam needs a hospital, so can we save the grand showdown for when he's okay?" Without waiting for a response he started walking again.

Bobby closed his eyes on one deep breath, and then followed.

"Dean."

Dean stopped, but didn't turn. Bobby held out one of the water bottles.

"Let me take Sam, okay?"

"I got him –"

"Yeah, and you look like you're about to fall over. Give him to me before I have to carry both of you out."

Dean looked for a moment as if he was going to refuse. Then his shoulders dropped, and he nodded.

"Okay. Okay." With the utmost care he slid Sam off his shoulder and onto the ground, going down on his knees beside him so that Sam was propped against him. Bobby dropped down awkwardly on Sam's other side, taking in the unnatural flush and hard, rapid breathing. Dean took the bottle from him, but instead of drinking the contents himself he let the water trickle into his brother's open mouth.

"What happened to his shoes?" For the first time Bobby noticed the bare feet.

From Dean's frown, it was obvious that he'd also overlooked Sam's lack of footwear.

"I don't know. I didn't know he wasn't wearing any." The frown deepened. "His feet..."

Bobby looked, and winced. Without speaking he lifted Sam's foot, tilting it so that Dean could see the mess of blood and blisters that was the sole.

Dean swallowed.

"Holy crap." His voice was a horrified whisper. "No wonder he couldn't stand... I'm sorry, Sammy. I should have noticed." His arm tightened, pulling his unconscious brother more securely against him.

"He fell, Bobby – back at the car. He hit his head. I was sleeping, and when I woke up he was gone. I couldn't find him... I didn't know where he was." His upper lip twitched, and he looked away quickly. "I didn't know... I couldn't just wait for you. I couldn't just leave him to wander around out here."

Bobby's gaze went sharply to his face, and down to Sam, and his eyes flickered. He nodded once.

"Let's get him back to the car." His voice was matter-of-fact.

The hand that gripped Dean's shoulder for a brief moment was not.

* * *

It was different.

He could feel it.

Still unbearably, oppressively hot. But there was air now, moving air, and water – or some kind of liquid – dripping over his face. It was actually pleasant.

But he could feel something vibrating. Under him. Through him. A dull roar thudded against his consciousness. And he was moving.

_Something was moving him._

Panic, wild and unreasoning, flared through him. It had found him, the thing they were hunting; it had captured him, and now it was taking him somewhere, taking him away, to where it would kill him, and where no-one would ever find him.

_Dean!_

The fear clawed at him. Dean... he hadn't found him. He didn't know where he was. If the... thing... had found Sam, perhaps it had found Dean too, and perhaps Dean was injured, dying somewhere, and Sam was the only one who knew there was anything wrong.

He had to get away.

He had to escape and find Dean.

Dean needed him.

He had to get away!

He could see it now, right next to him. It looked human, but he knew better; how many hundreds of foul things out there masqueraded as human?

It hadn't noticed that he was awake. He had to make his move, get away while it was unprepared. He had to –

Its head turned.

Oh crap... oh crap... it had seen him, it was leaning towards him, talking, reaching for him, and he had to get away –

_He had to get away!_

His hands scrabbled at the barrier beside him. Then, suddenly, it gave way.

He hurled himself towards freedom.

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**_Please review - I love to hear (read!) your comments!_**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Thanks so much to everyone who's been keeping up with this story! A special shout out to two birthday girls: KayValo87 for the 18th and SunnyZim for the 20th - Happy Birthday to both of you!**_

**_Disclaimer: I keep forgetting to do this... it doesn't belong to me._**

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If the Impala had suffered during its enforced summer vacation, it made no complaint. Under the leaden pressure of Dean's foot on the accelerator it surged over the gravel road, leaving a dust cloud in its wake that enveloped Bobby's pickup behind it.

Under any other circumstances, Dean would have been murmuring compliments to his baby, commenting on how well she'd come through this little ordeal, assuring her that he'd remove the dust and grit just as soon as they reached civilisation again. Under any other circumstances Sam would have been rolling his eyes, and suggesting that Dean took better care of the car than he took of himself.

But there were two individuals of whom Dean took better care than he did of himself, and when it came to a choice between the two his little brother won every time.

His eyes slid from the road to the passenger seat, as they had a hundred times already.

Sam was slumped against the vinyl, his head lolling on the back of the seat and his limbs sprawled loosely. Water beaded from wet tendrils of hair and trickled over fever-flushed skin.

It had been Bobby who'd directed Dean to strip Sam of dusty t-shirt and jeans, and to pour several bottles of water over him, although it wasn't that Dean didn't know what to do. Theoretically he was prepared for this, could recall his father's instructions on some long-ago hunt. But this wasn't theoretical. This was Sam, not some nameless victim, and Dean had never been very good at thinking logically when his brother was in trouble. He'd nodded dumbly and followed Bobby's orders, and tried not to panic when Sam didn't respond to the cold water on his overheated body.

With the t-shirt gone, Dean could see just how bad the sunburn was. Sam had always tanned easily, but this had been too much exposure all at once. Scarlet, angrily blistered forearms and neck contrasted sharply with the normal flesh tone of areas that had been protected. Dean, whose freckled skin burnt more readily, could imagine how much pain that would cause once Sam was conscious enough to be aware of it.

Once Sam was conscious.

Dean swallowed, looking back at the road. Between a concussion, dehydration and raging fever, Sam hadn't really been awake since he'd been found. And Dean was scared. He wanted to see Sam's eyes, aware and alert, and hear Sam say that he was okay.

He wanted to hear Sam say anything.

His foot pressed a little harder on the accelerator.

Yesterday, when they had run out of gas, he hadn't wanted to call emergency services. It was too much attention. They didn't need officials interested in them, even if in an apparently harmless way.

And now he was heading for the nearest hospital. It was ironic, that in his attempt to avoid unnecessary notice he'd ended up precipitating that very thing.

Because if he'd called for help, back then when all he had to worry about was a delayed holiday in Vegas, this wouldn't have happened. They would have been rescued and sent on their way, and Dean would have dealt with any legal difficulties with his usual aplomb. And Sam would have been sitting beside him sleeping, or reading, or hanging his arm out of the window and drumming his fingers in time to Dean's music, on the outside of the door where he thought Dean wouldn't see.

He turned his head again.

Sam's eyes were open.

"Sam?" His glance became a focused gaze, his attention off the road. Sam was staring at him, but his eyes were glassy, without recognition. Dean's right hand left the wheel and reached for his brother. "Sammy?"

Bloodshot blue-green eyes widened in something that was not relief. Sam's breath caught, and he shrank back, his hands moving in an uncoordinated scrabble.

In one shocking split-second Dean realised that it was panic in Sam's eyes.

Then Sam's wildly groping fingers found the handle and he lunged at the door even as it swung open.

"_**Sam!**_"

Dean's other hand left the steering wheel, foot lifted from the accelerator, mind spun wildly away from the road ahead, and he threw himself across the bench seat, tackling Sam around the waist and pinning him down. Sam writhed beneath him, arms and legs flailing.

Suddenly deprived of guidance, the Impala fishtailed on the gravel and then went into an uncontrolled slide, tyres spinning. Sand and loose pebbles flew in all directions. The open door swung wide, tortured hinges squealing, before slamming shut with a force that would probably have amputated any limbs that happened to be in its way.

Dean clamped himself over his brother's squirming body and covered his head.

* * *

"Dean! _Dean!_"

Footsteps, boots, pounding on the gravel.

Frantic voice.

_Bobby._

It took Dean a moment to realise that the car had stopped. The air was thick with choking dust, flung up by the Impala's tyres. Under him Sam still struggled feebly.

"Dean!" The passenger door was flung open.

Dean lifted his head, blinking cautiously.

"Bobby."

"Are you... Sam... What the hell happened?" Bobby was breathing hard, as if he'd been running. Dean could see fear in his eyes that he was still too shaken to conceal. "Are you okay?"

"I... yeah." Dean pushed himself up. "Yeah, we're okay." He ran his hand over his face, letting out a deep breath, and looked through the speckled windshield. The Impala had swung around and was now facing in the direction they'd just come. Through the haze he could see Bobby's pickup, slewed at an odd angle across the road.

"Had to swing the wheel pretty hard to avoid hitting you." Bobby answered his unspoken question. "What happened – something run out in the road?"

"Sam –" Dean's answer broke off as Sam launched himself at the open door again. Bobby staggered under the sudden weight, his arms instinctively catching hold of the younger Winchester.

"– did _that_," Dean finished grimly. He slid across the seat, ducked under one wildly flailing fist and wrapped his arms around his brother, pinning Sam against his chest.

"Sam. Calm down, bro – Sam!" His grip tightened as Sam fought the restraint. Frantic words spilled, incoherent. "Sammy – you gotta relax, dude."

"It's the fever messin' with his head." Bobby was leaning in. His hands gripped Sam's shins, holding him down. "Heat stroke's makin' him combative."

"You think?" Worry leached the sarcasm from Dean's voice. "I can't drive, Bobby – not with him like this... he'll be flinging himself out the door soon's I let him go." He grunted as an elbow jabbed him in the stomach.

Bobby frowned, his eyes flicking from Dean to Sam.

"Yeah." He glanced back at his truck thoughtfully. "You think you can get him into the truck? I'll load the Impala on the back."

"Yeah. Okay." Dean didn't relish the idea of manipulating six foot four of violently thrashing little brother into Bobby's truck. It was taking all he had just to hold Sam down. He watched as Bobby strode back to his pickup, and put his mouth close to his brother's ear. "Sam! Just calm down, would you? "

He felt the fight go out of the rigid body in his arms. Sam's arms dropped onto the vinyl, his head lolling against Dean's shoulder.

"Yeah, that's better..." Dean dipped his head to peer into his brother's face, and his voice trailed off as he saw the disoriented fear in the familiar blue-green eyes. Sam shivered.

"Dean..."

"Sammy?"

"Dean... need to... need to..." Sam's voice was a gravelly rasp.

"Sam, it's okay. You don't have to do anything."

Sam's hand lifted, pushed without strength at Dean's arm which still held him.

"Need to... Dean..."

"It's okay, Sammy, I'm here. Just relax. Sam?"

It wasn't working. Sam was quiet, not fighting him, but it wasn't the stillness of relief. If anything, Dean saw resignation in the fear that was intensifying in his brother's face.

"_Dean_..."

"I'm here, bro."

"No... no... Dean..." The harsh breathing hitched, quivered in a tearless sob. Sam made another ineffectual attempt to break free and then lapsed back, tremors running through him.

"Have to... have to find Dean..."

And then Dean understood.

"Sammy – it's me, bro. Really. I gotcha... you're safe now, you hear me?"

Sam stared at him without recognition.

"Find Dean..." he whispered.

"Sam, look at me... I'm here. I'm right here. You don't have to find me." One arm released its grip and he pressed his hand against Sam's face, palm cradling his jaw. "You're gonna be okay. I gotcha now, you're gonna be fine."

Sam's pulse hammered under his fingers. The water Dean had poured over him earlier was making a damp patch where his head rested on Dean's shoulder, but it didn't seem to have had an appreciable effect on the fever; if anything, Sam seemed to be getting worse.

"No... need to get _away_..." It was a wretched moan.

"Sammy..." He hated how helpless he was in the face of his brother's distress, helpless to reassure him, to rescue him from the torturous place Sam's fevered brain had conjured up. He hated that Sam was calling for him without realising that Dean was right there. "It's okay, Sammy, I'm here. You're safe now."

He wasn't surprised when Sam didn't listen.

"You need help moving him?" Bobby appeared at the door again, and Dean blinked, startled. He hadn't even heard the pickup.

"Uh – yeah. Yeah, take his legs." Dean shifted his grip and slid them both along the seat.

"How'd you get him to calm down?"

"He just... quietened, but he's still pretty freaked out. He's saying he's gotta go find me, he's gotta get away... I don't know where he thinks he is."

Bobby looked down at the younger Winchester, his forehead creasing.

"Probably thinks he's still out there in the desert."

Dean's gaze narrowed in comprehension.

_Wandering around..._

_Trying to get back to safety..._

_Trying to get to Dean._

He dropped his head and let his chin rest for a moment on the wet dark hair.

_I gotcha, Sammy..._

* * *

He would never have lived this down if Sam was awake.

Physical touch wasn't taboo between them, of course. There was the usual shoulder-gripping, or back-slapping, and even, in times of extreme emotion, a manly hug. It was usually initiated by Sam. Dean pretended not to like it, and Sam pretended to believe him.

_Cuddling_, though... that was completely out of the question. Wrapping arms around one's brother for more than a few seconds was not done.

And right now he couldn't care less.

Sam was unconscious, or completely unresponsive. And Dean was scared.

Combative Sam was a struggle; arms flailing and legs kicking, it took all Dean's strength to hold him down. Panicking, disorientated Sam was upsetting when Dean couldn't do anything to soothe him.

Unconscious Sam was the worst. Limbs inert on the backseat, head drooping against Dean's chest, eyes shut and mouth slackly open... there was nothing to distract Dean from just how serious his condition was, nothing to do but feel the heat of rising fever and listen to the rasp of increasingly laboured breathing.

So he cradled his brother against him and wiped his face with a wet rag, and willed the sturdy pickup to move faster. And if the fingers which gripped Sam's shoulder sometimes stroked along his arm there was no-one to notice but himself.

Dean had been not quite five when he'd realised his primary purpose.

_Watch out for Sammy._

_Look after Sam._

_Keep Sam safe._

He'd screwed up this time.

Getting lost, running out of gas – it had been Sam's fault. But it had been Dean who'd slept, oblivious, while his brother fell and hit his head and went wandering off into the desert. He'd wasted precious time waiting for Sam to find his own way back instead of going to find him.

And now that Sam had been found, he didn't even know it. Sam thought he was still out there in the desert. He didn't know he was safe. From the confused panic in his eyes when he was awake and the way he fought to get away, it was obvious that he felt anything but secure. Dean had spent over twenty years representing safety to Sam; he hated being the opposite now.

His hand went to the carotid pulse. Again. It was no better than it had been a minute previously, when he'd last checked. It might even have been a little faster. The cold water and the air flow from open windows weren't helping as they should have. And the last time Dean had tried to get Sam to drink something, he'd inhaled the water and almost asphyxiated. Dean hadn't dared give him any more, although he could see from the sunken eyes and cracked lips that the dehydration was bad.

Sam needed a hospital.

He glanced up and caught Bobby's gaze in the rear-view mirror.

"How's he doing?"

Dean's jaw shifted. His hand at Sam's pulse moved, calloused thumb sliding absently over one fever-accentuated cheekbone.

"He... just... drive fast."

Bobby said nothing, but Dean felt the pickup shudder as his boot went down harder on the accelerator, and his arm tightened instinctively around his brother. Sam shivered, a small wordless sound of pain escaping him as the movement bumped his foot against the seat.

"It's okay, Sammy." Dean put his head down, mouth near Sam's ear as if proximity would somehow break the barrier that concussion and fever had raised between them. "I gotcha now... you're safe now... you're gonna be fine. I'm gonna take care of you."

Dark eyelashes flickered, showing slits of blue-green, and for a moment he thought Sam had heard him.

"De..."

"Sam?"

"Dean..." The glassy-eyed gaze slid over his face without awareness. "Please..."

"What, Sam? What is it?" He reached for the half-empty bottle of water, and stilled abruptly as Sam flinched away from the movement.

"Have to... have to find Dean..." Sam was breathing in stertorous gasps as the delirious panic escalated again.

"Sammy, I'm here, bro." His voice was patient. His hand on Sam's face was gentle. "Really. I'm right here. You're safe."

"Please..." The shivers were becoming more violent. "_Please_..."

"What? What do you –"

"Don' hurt him..." It was a desperate plea.

"_Have to find Dean..."_

"_Please don't hurt him..."_

Dean was stunned silent. Now, at last, he understood.

Sam wasn't concerned for his own safety.

He was worried about Dean's.

"Sammy..." His voice cracked, but the only one close enough to hear him was too lost in his own fevered imagination to understand: the little brother who'd been lost in the desert, who was suffering from concussion and heat stroke and dehydration but was still more worried about Dean than about himself.

The little brother who'd been told he sucked as a companion.

"Sammy?" He felt Sam stiffen against him, and looked down in time to see his eyes roll back. "Sam!"

He was vaguely aware of Bobby saying something, sharp and urgent, but he wasn't listening. Sam convulsed violently, limbs thudding against the seat, and Dean didn't know what to do, whether to restrain him or let him go, because in all their years of concussions and broken bones and blood loss he'd never seen this before – had never seen _Sam_ do this before – and it was terrifying, more than the combativeness earlier or the incoherent panic or even the unconsciousness...

And then Sam went completely limp, his head lolling back over Dean's arm.

"Sam!" Even through the fear Dean knew enough to roll his brother onto his side. One arm held him still, head in the crook of Dean's elbow, while shaking fingers fumbled for a pulse and his own heart hammered hard enough that Sam would have felt it where his back pressed against Dean's chest, if he'd been awake.

"Dean? _Dean!_" Bobby was looking in the rear-view mirror more than at the road.

"Drive faster, Bobby!" Dean's voice was a snap. Quick, hard breaths puffed against his arm, and under his fingertips Sam's pulse was racing. He was so hot that it was distinctly uncomfortable holding him close.

"Doubt I can get more than this outta her, Dean –"

"Try!"

"Can't do it, boy, not with the Impala on the back."

"Then leave the friggin' Impala!" Dean snarled. He didn't look to see Bobby's response. At that point he didn't care. He reached for the rag, now almost dry in the arid air, wet it again and ran it over Sam's face and neck.

Bobby said nothing. The truck slowed and stopped, the driver's door creaked. Dean felt the lift as a ton of Chevrolet was removed, but he didn't even glance up. He was abandoning his baby, leaving her in the middle of inhospitable nowhere for who knew how long. And he didn't give a damn.

Between his baby and his baby brother, there was never any question of who took precedence.

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**_Please review ;-)_**


	7. Chapter 7

_**I'm pretty sure you don't want to read some long excuse as to why it's taken me almost three months to update this... and that's good, because I don't really have one. Other than that my muse seemed to desert me utterly and entirely. I had already planned out this chapter but actually WRITING it was another job altogether.**_

_**But hey. Here it is. And particular thanks to those readers who prodded me about finishing it – you encouraged me not to give up, which was a tempting idea, I must admit! This isn't actually the last chapter, but the next one is almost half-written so hopefully it shouldn't take me another three months to post.**_

**Disclaimer**_**: They're definitely not mine. If the show belonged to me, season 6 would have started on May 20**__**th**__** and we'd all know... what we don't know now ;-). And there'd be a hug.**_

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Dean had known it was bad.

As soon as he'd seen the blood, as soon as he'd realised that Sam had wandered off and was lost in the desert, he'd known that they were in trouble. Sam was missing. Sam was hurt. Sam was not with Dean; he was not where Dean could keep an eye on him and keep him safe. And his dream and his common sense had prepared him for the condition in which he'd found his brother: semi-conscious, dehydrated, scarlet and blistered with sunburn.

But he'd found Sam. Somehow, despite everything, he had found him. And at that point, with Sam secure in his arms, limp and overheated as he was, Dean had somehow thought the worst was over. Sam was no longer lost, they were no longer separated, and although he was clearly in need of medical attention, he was safe.

Now, in the shabby madness of the hospital waiting room, he had to acknowledge that he'd been wrong. The end of the m&m trail hadn't been the end of the nightmare: he was still in it. And he couldn't wake up.

In the ugly plastic chair next to his, Bobby's head sagged to his chest, heavy breath grumbling into a snore in the back of his throat. Dean listened vaguely, and stared at the crack running across the corner of one of the linoleum floor tiles.

Sam wasn't safe. He wasn't okay. If the convulsions in the car and the steadily worsening fever hadn't convinced Dean of that, the instant frantic activity of the hospital personnel upon their arrival would have been proof enough. They'd barely listened to his explanations, had whisked Sam away behind heavy swing doors and refused to let Dean follow. He could still picture the last view he'd had of his brother: sprawled unmoving on the gurney, damp hair falling across closed eyes, bare feet torn and blistered.

Sam could still die.

For a while, when Sam was gone, Dean had acknowledged that possibility. But he'd been too busy then, to think about it as more than a stimulus to urgent action.

Now he had time to think.

He'd lived without Sam before, when his brother was at Stanford, and he'd functioned perfectly adequately. He'd hunted, with ruthless efficiency. He'd eaten and done laundry and slept and driven, had even entertained himself with bars, pool and poker, girls. And somehow he'd managed to pretend even to himself that there wasn't something missing. He'd managed to persuade himself that he didn't need Sam.

He'd been wrong. After months of hunting together since Jess had died and Sam had left school, Dean could not imagine how he'd hunted without his brother, without Sam's research skills and empathetic handling of victims, without the security of working with another hunter whom he trusted absolutely.

And he couldn't imagine how he'd lived without Sam. It wasn't just the hunts, the backup and the extra knowledge; it was the thousand stupid little things that went along with being with a person who knew him as well as he did himself. It was the way Sam moaned about Dean's music and then sang it in the shower. It was the way he grumbled about Dean's dirty clothes on the floor but spent an hour getting the blood from a hunt out of Dean's favourite t-shirt.

"_...as a companion you really suck..."_

Anger and heat and the remnants of flu had made him say it – had made him believe it.

Now he couldn't understand how he'd ever even thought it.

There were many hunters with whom he could work, knowledgeable and capable, and several of them were good enough comrades with whom to enjoy a beer and a game of poker.

And none of them could ever come close to being the companion that Sam was. He was Dean's partner, his ally. His best friend.

Dean didn't know if Sam had remembered what he'd said. He wasn't sure what Sam had been thinking in those nightmare hours, lost and alone in the cruel waterless heat. He'd been upset when Dean had said it, though. Dean could remember the startled hurt in his eyes and the way he'd flinched, almost as if Dean had hit him.

And then, in spite of all that, Sam had been terrified about Dean's safety.

In whatever bizarre unreality concussion and heatstroke had conjured up for him, it had been Dean about whom Sam was worried, Dean for whose well-being he'd begged. Lost, confused and hurt, his primary thought had been for his brother.

"_Don' hurt him..."_

But it was Sam who'd been hurt. By Dean.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

_Sammy..._

Sam could still die.

Dean had spent a fair amount of his life in hospitals, either being treated or waiting impatiently for news. He'd talked to too many medical staff not to be able to hear what they weren't saying.

The middle-aged doctor with tired blue eyes had spoken about heat stroke, about dehydration and fever and febrile convulsions. He'd been calm and reassuring as he talked about rapid temperature reduction, fluid replacement, seizure control. And Dean had seen the tension in his shoulders, the concern that the man kept otherwise perfectly hidden, and he'd cut across the flow of words, interrupted the doctor to ask the only thing that really mattered.

"_He's going to be okay, right? He's going to be fine?"_

He'd heard the answer in the other man's involuntary deep breath, in the hesitation as the doctor formulated a response. He'd felt the fear, heavy like a fist to the gut, before the actual words were spoken.

"_Dangerously high temperature... condition serious... doing everything we can..."_

And the knockout:

"_If his temperature doesn't come down significantly in the next hour, I'm afraid the prognosis is poor."_

He hadn't heard anything since then. He'd filled out forms, given monosyllabic answers in response to Bobby's attempts at conversation, tried to pretend that he wasn't horribly aware of the inexorable passing of time.

_The next hour... the next hour..._

Sam could die.

Dean closed his eyes for a moment, shaky breath sucking in, and then thrust himself to his feet. Beside him a snore caught as the movement startled Bobby into spluttering wakefulness, but he didn't wait for the older man's comment.

He couldn't just sit there. He wasn't going to wait passively for someone to come and tell him that Sam had lost the fight. That Sam had died, surrounded by strangers.

Sam couldn't go thinking that Dean didn't want him.

He was quite prepared to argue with anyone who tried to prevent him from going into the ER. He pushed through the swing doors through which Sam had vanished earlier and found himself in a generic hospital corridor, with its standard beige linoleum and scuffed institution-green walls. It was as busy as he'd expected, a constant buzz of uniformed figures moving through the doors that opened off the hall. He paused, momentarily nonplussed.

_Somewhere_ in this maze, behind one of the many doors, was Sam.

Hurt.

Sick.

Alone.

_If he's even alive._

Dean's mouth twisted at the thought, but it was enough to break him from his brief immobility. He needed to find Sam. Now.

Given the number of hospital staff moving around, he expected to be intercepted almost immediately. He straightened unconsciously, a purposeful frown driving a groove between his eyes, and headed towards the first door.

The chubby pre-teen wheezing into an oxygen mask didn't notice him. Her mother, grimly corpulent, looked up, and at the startled displeasure on her face Dean backed out quickly.

An impressive stack of bedpans greeted him as he opened door number two.

His fingers had closed over the third handle when a nurse emerged from a room a little further along the hall. Heels thudded on the linoleum as she hurried away, and for a brief instant the door stood open before an unseen hand inside pushed it shut.

That moment was enough, though. Enough for him to hear the sound to which his ears were more finely tuned than any other. Sam's voice – hoarse – pained – desperate. Afraid.

Dean didn't hesitate.

There were other people in there, uniforms. Some part of him knew they were only trying to help Sam, but he'd never been able to hear his little brother in trouble and do nothing.

"Sir!" The female voice was startled and a little angry. There was more – "...can't come in..." and "...calling security..." and it was just an annoying buzz to be ignored, as was the hand that reached for his arm, and the green-clad figure that stepped into his way. Because he could see Sam, could hear the gasping "No... no... Dean..." and there was nothing that was going to stop him when Sam called for him like that. There was nothing that _could_ stop him.

"Sam? Sammy!" He wrenched his arm from someone's grip, took another stride towards the bed. Sam was fighting, limbs flailing in a pathetic attempt to get away from the orderlies, breathing harsh and quick and panicked.

"No... please... _please_..."

"Sam –"

Blue-green eyes shifted, met green ones. Then Sam's gaze slid away again without recognition.

"Dean... have to... have to... _Dean_..." He sagged against the bed, words dying to an incoherent mutter.

Another hand closed over Dean's arm, stronger this time. The voice in his ear was male, and angry.

"Sir, you can't be here. You have to leave."

He couldn't resist them indefinitely. They would just call in security, and throw him out. He'd never been particularly concerned about staying on the right side of authority, but if he was separated from Sam now he might not have another chance. This might be the last time –

And then Sam seemed to gather his meagre resources in a final desperate bid for freedom. His legs pulled up with a shuffle, fumbling hands pressed down, and he threw himself off the bed in a wild uncoordinated lunge.

Dean saw the tension in quivering muscles, remembered terrified fingers scrabbling at the door of the Impala, and guessed his intent a split-second before Sam jumped. One sharp swing freed his arm; one long stride carried him forward in time to catch hold of Sam just before the younger Winchester hit the floor.

Sam landed against him with a force that made Dean stagger. He grunted, arms closing around his brother, bracing himself to take Sam's weight. Sam's feet and ankles still rested precariously on the edge of the bed; his face was buried against Dean's chest.

For a moment, holding onto Sam and feeling the heat of uncontrolled fever, Dean was back in the Impala. He could hear his own futile attempts to calm his brother, to reassure him, and Sam's distress.

"_Have to find Dean..."_

"_Don' hurt him..."_

Muscles bunched in his grip, and he felt Sam's hands groping at his jacket. Sam's face bumped against him as he tried to pull his head back. Dean heard him mumble something.

"_Sam_ –"

Then the restlessly pawing fingers stilled. Sam's head turned a little, his chin digging into Dean's chest as his face tilted up.

"De... Dean?"

Not a plea. Not a terrified cry for mercy.

Looking down, Dean saw a glimmer of awareness in the feverish eyes peering up at him. Sam's fingers were curled tightly around Dean's amulet, and a deep indentation in one flushed cheek showed where it had pressed into his face.

"Sammy?"

"Dean..." Sam blinked. "'s you..."

"Yeah, it's me."

"'s _really_ you..."

"It's _really_ me, Sammy."

He felt a tremor shiver through the body in his arms, and Sam's free hand clutched at his jacket. Worry – fear – flitted through the dazed eyes.

"Are you... are you..."

"I'm okay, bro."

"Not... di'n't hurt you?"

"No. Really, Sam. I'm fine."

"So worried..." Sam's breath hitched. Dean's jaw clenched, but his voice when he spoke was gentle.

"I know. I know you were." _Worried about me... even though you were the one in trouble and I'd been such a dick..._ "But it's all good now, Sammy, you hear me? There's nothing to worry about now. You can just relax."

"Dean..." There was relief in the rasping voice. "I thought... I thought..."

"What?"

"I... I couldn't find you..."

_Yeah, right back at you, dude._

Dean's arms tightened a little at the memory of his own fear.

"I know. But I gotcha, Sammy. You're safe now."

He felt the release of tension as Sam sagged against him, and his back protested at the weight.

"You okay with going back on the bed? Cause I gotta tell you, salad boy, you weigh a ton."

Sam blinked hazily at him.

"Head hurts..."

"Yeah, well, that's not surprising. You smacked it on a rock." Dean's words came out breathless as he heaved two hundred pounds of little brother back onto the bed.

"Rock...?" Sam slumped against the mattress, limbs sprawling bonelessly, eyes heavy. One hand still grasped Dean's amulet, tugging Dean down when he would have straightened.

"Hey! Mind if I have that back?" Dean huffed a laugh, unwinding Sam's grip from the metal. The hot fingers immediately clutched his hand instead, and this time he let them stay. He would have emphatically denied that his own closed over them.

"Dean..." Sam slurred. Dark lashes fluttered. "Don'... don'..."

"Don't what?"

"Don'... go..." The words drifted. Dean felt the hand in his relax, and he leant forward, suddenly alarmed. Sam was very still, eyes shut and head lolling slightly to one side.

"Sam? Sammy!"

"It's okay. It's just the Lorazepam." Dean had forgotten the presence of the medics around him; he blinked as the doctor spoke up. "It's a sedative – we gave it to him to control the seizures. Looks like it's kicking in at last."

"So he's doing better – he's doing okay?"

Gravely non-committal seemed to be the doctor's default facial expression, but Dean saw the flicker of a surprised smile as the man glanced at the bank of monitors keeping electronic watch over Sam's vitals.

"His temperature's down half a degree. I'd like to see it a little lower –"

"He recognised me, though." Dean cut across the cautious observation. "That's a good sign, right?"

"As I said, I'd like to see his temperature down further, and his pulse and respirations stabilised. There's always the danger of lasting... er... damage as a result of the high fever, and that's something we won't really be able to evaluate until his stats are back to normal –"

"_Doctor_."

The older man blinked, and cleared his throat.

"Uh – hmm. Well, I don't really like to commit myself at this stage, but... yes. The way things are looking, there does seem to be some improvement. Obviously we'll need to keep an eye..."

The doctor's voice continued its circumspect monologue in the background, but Dean had stopped listening.

"_His temperature's down half a degree..."_

Sam was still flushed, still too close to the limp lifelessness of Dean's nightmare. But the breath which rasped between cracked lips was a little slower, a little steadier. The lax fingers were a little cooler against Dean's palm.

"_There does seem to be some improvement..."_

Sam had recognised him. There'd been relief in the dazed eyes turned up to his, relief at the realisation of Dean's safety. Dean knew he didn't deserve his own relief, but he let it engulf him nonetheless.

"_Need to get away..."_

"_Have to find Dean..."_

He blinked hard, remembering the panic in that cracked voice – the fear in his own heart. He'd thought he was going to lose his brother... his best friend... his Sam. He still couldn't quite believe that he was being given another chance.

"_Dean... don' go..."_

"Not gonna leave you, Sammy..." The reassurance was quiet as a breath, almost inaudible. His fingers closed a little more firmly around his brother's, and this time he didn't care who saw.

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_**Please review... I love hearing your comments :-)**_


	8. Chapter 8

_***Wallflowergirl babbles with incoherent joy that this is FINALLY finished***_

_**Sorry that this took a little longer than I said it would. But then again, it wasn't three months this time. And let me say right here, all the wonderful encouragement I got for the last chapter was such motivation to work on this one! You guys made me so happy :-)**_

_**I want to send a special thanks (and a huge hug) to my wonderful mom, who gave me a brilliant idea when I was stuck at one point in this chapter. I love you, Muth!**_

_**Disclaimer: I'm hoping they'll jump out of a parcel for me on my birthday... but until then, they're not mine. I don't own Planet Earth either, or Richard Scarry. **_

_**SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN**_

His head hurt.

He thought he could remember that from before: the heavy, fierce throb, pounding through his temples and sparking behind his eyes.

It was detached now, the intensity dulled.

Nearby a machine was sounding a soft regular tone, and in the distance he heard voices, although he couldn't make out individual words.

It was all familiar. He'd been here before, or somewhere like it.

He couldn't remember why, though. Or when.

_Hot._

_Pain._

He could remember the heat, the blinding sun and heavy, stifling air washing over tender skin. Discomfort that was close to hurt. Gritty sand and sharp rocks under too-sensitive feet – no discomfort there, just pure pain. Dust sticky in his mouth, and the overwhelming, unbearable need for something to drink.

And Dean.

_Fear._

Everything else was vague, impressions more than actual memories. But the alarm, the panic... the desperate necessity to find Dean before _something_ got to him first... that was clear. And the horror that he'd felt each time he discovered his brother's mutilated corpse still sent a shiver through him.

Other memories intruded then, overrode the horror and the panic and the pain. Arms like iron bands wrapped around him, holding him up... cold, irregular metal digging into his cheek where his face pressed against hard muscle... firm, calloused fingers gripping his... a deep voice.

"_I gotcha, Sammy... you're safe now... not gonna leave you."_

Dean was there.

Dean was safe. Dean was okay, not trapped, not injured or dying or dead. Somehow he'd found Dean, or Dean had found him.

They were _both_ safe.

"Dean..." It didn't sound like his voice; it was thin and hoarse, as if he'd been gargling with gravel. One hand moved a little, finding the crisp roughness of clean sheets. "Dean?"

The voices had stopped; the bleep of the machine nearby was the only sound, the tone a little faster now. Dean didn't answer.

He knew an echo of the familiar fear. It hadn't all been a dream... surely? Maybe he'd just imagined it. Maybe he was going to wake up, and he'd still be there in the _hot_, and the _dry_, and Dean would be gone again... _dead_ again.

"_Dean_!"

His hand fumbled on the sheet, reaching for... something... someone. Scratchy eyes cracked open, but at the immediate spike of pain from the intruding light he scrunched them shut again with a dull moan.

The lack of response to the sound told him more definitely than anything else that Dean was not there.

"Dean..."

He _was_ just dreaming. Any second now the sheets and the soft regular bleep and the cool air would be gone. He was going to open his eyes to grit and burning sun and pain –

Then his groping fingers encountered something that wasn't starchy sheets. Soft, supple... familiar. Seared fingertips investigated, light and tentative, and for the first time he registered the weight across his thighs.

He knew this. He recognised this. This was the fabric of his childhood, of those long-ago days when his father was just his dad and ghosts were just stories. This was the texture of a protective arm thrust between him and danger, of a solid shoulder to lean against when he was hurt, of a broad back that had always borne his burdens. This was security... home... Dean.

Fingers stilled. Gripped. Tugged. He felt the strain in uncharacteristically weak muscles, was vaguely frustrated that so much effort was required to perform such a simple task; the garment seemed to resist him as he pulled. In the stillness he could hear the heavy slide of leather on linen.

He was breathing fast by the time it was gathered up. His arm curved around it, hugging it close, and panic faded, lulled by the smell of gun oil, of smoke and cheap soap and fresh earth. Of Dean.

He didn't know where he was, or why. He didn't really understand anything.

But he was safe. He knew that much.

He curled onto his side and buried his face in the well-worn leather.

* * *

"Brought you breakfast."

The cardboard bag looked pleasingly full. Dean's stomach rumbled, but it was the large coffee in Bobby's other hand that brought a gleam to tired bloodshot eyes. He rolled his shoulders, tilting his head at an unnatural angle until a stiff joint popped satisfyingly, and reached for the caffeine.

"Hospital chairs..." he groused. "I swear they design them on purpose to injure people. Want to increase their patient numbers, or something." He swallowed a large mouthful.

Bobby eyed him.

"How's Sam?"

The momentary coffee-induced bliss slid from Dean's face, but the expression that replaced it was one of genuine relief.

"He's definitely doing better. His temperature's down, almost to normal, and everything else is looking okay, pulse and what-have-you. He's still asleep from the sedative, but the doctor says he should be fine."

Bobby cleared his throat.

"Good. That's good to hear." He adjusted his baseball cap, frowning. "I tell you, I was pretty worried, a coupla times back there in the truck. Heat stroke's nothing to screw around with, and when he started in on the convulsions..."

_Worried? Try terrified..._

Dean's eyes flickered as he remembered the horror of that drive. He took another gulp of coffee to hide his reaction.

"Yeah. Well. Doctor's keeping him in for a couple more days, to monitor his temperature, and also to make sure his feet are okay. They're a mess but apparently they should be fine too, as long as he gives them time to heal." He was silent for a moment, images of Sam's damaged feet starkly clear in his mind.

"Walking around barefoot in the desert'll do that to you. He's lucky to have got off so lightly, all things considered –"

"He was looking for me, Bobby."

"Yeah –"

"No, he was looking for me, to _save_ me. He thought I was hurt. He kept going because he thought he needed to help me."

It was Bobby's turn for silence.

Dean could imagine it only too well: Sam, confused, afraid, staggering across the burning sand on torn and blistered feet, driven by the need to save Dean. He'd been physically overcome, eventually, by his own weakness, but the fear hadn't faded with his strength.

From the look on Bobby's face, the same scene was playing out in his mind.

His voice was gruff when he spoke.

"Wouldn't have expected anything else from him."

"What?"

"Boy's a Winchester, ain't he? All of you, you, your daddy – you're only too ready to sacrifice yourselves for each other. If Sam thought you were in trouble, he wouldn't let a little thing like hurt feet get in the way. Or dehydration, or concussion."

_Or the things I said to him before._

Bobby was right, of course. Dean's mind went to another hospital room, to the shrill continuous whine of a cardiac monitor and a suspiciously missing Colt, and then shied away at the still unbearable pain of that memory. His father had done it. And Dean would do the same thing for Sam. But that didn't make it okay. He didn't have to like the idea of Sam fighting through pain and weakness to save Dean. That was Dean's job. That was the big brother's job, to protect the little brother.

_Well, bang-up job you did with that, hotshot._

"Don't give me that crap."

"Huh?"

Bobby eyed him shrewdly.

"I don't want some story about how it's fine for you but not for him. Okay, back in the day he was the little one, it was your job to keep him safe, keep him out of danger, and there wasn't much he could do by way of returning the favour. But he's not a kid anymore, Dean."

"Bobby –"

"Sam's a grown man, and a damn good hunter, and he's not going to sit back and watch you in trouble – or _think_ you're in trouble – without doing just as much to help you as you would do for him if it was the other way round."

For a moment a spark of resentment flared in Dean, but it faded almost as quickly. He ran his hand through his hair, breath coming out in a sigh.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's just..." He gestured vaguely.

"Just what?"

_Just that I said all that crap, and he still went out and looked for me. Just that he was more worried about me than about himself even though he was in serious trouble._

But he wasn't going to unload on Bobby.

"Oh... nothing. Forget it."

Bobby looked sceptical.

"Yeah, that's real convincing." He was silent, but when Dean didn't comment he glanced at his watch. "I gotta go, Dean. I'll go pick up the Impala – don't want it to be standing out there too much longer." He hesitated, and cleared his throat. "Listen, I'm no Oprah, but whatever went on out there... well, you know Sam. Probably wouldn't hurt to talk about it."

Dean's eyes flickered, but his smile was only a little forced.

"Yeah. Probably." He paused for a beat. "Dr. Phil."

His face relaxed for the first time into a wholly natural grin as Bobby snorted.

"Just get back to your brother, ya idjit."

Dean watched for a moment as the older man trod heavily away down the hospital corridor, and then turned, tossing the now empty coffee cup into a nearby trash can.

Sam had not woken since he'd succumbed to the sedative the night before. He'd slept through the continuing efforts of the medical team to bring his temperature down, through the cleaning and dressing of his feet and the move to ICU. He'd slept while Dean sat beside him, fighting to stay awake and eventually falling asleep with his head on the bed next to Sam's hand. He'd still been asleep when Dean had woken four hours later in response to the demands of his bladder.

But Dean had been away longer than he'd intended, and now he hurried back in the direction of Sam's room. The last thing he wanted was for Sam to wake up alone in unfamiliar surroundings. He'd recognised Dean the night before, but there was no guarantee he'd be completely coherent and aware when he woke again. Dean could remember the panic in his brother's eyes only too clearly; he was determined not to be responsible for putting it there again.

But Sam was quiet, breathing heavily in sync with the regular tone of the cardiac monitor. The room was unchanged, everything as it had been when Dean had left, and relief loosened the tension that had unconsciously hunched his shoulders. Sam was okay. Sam was doing better. Sam was –

_Not_ as Dean had left him.

He was huddled on his side now, rather than flat on his back. Arms which had rested by his sides on the hospital sheets were now drawn up, fingers curling in a lax grip on something that was certainly not a standard hospital-issue pillow.

Something quivered inside Dean that was both pain and pleasure.

Sam _had_ woken up, obviously. And Dean hadn't been there, just as he'd feared. Sam had perhaps been confused or worried, had maybe thought that Dean was hurt, as he had before, or – even worse – that Dean had left him.

But he'd found Dean's jacket, where Dean had left it on the bed. He was clutching it like a toddler with his favourite blanket, and his face, burrowed into the soft leather, looked peaceful and very young.

Dean stood looking down at him, glad at that moment that Sam wasn't awake and that Bobby had gone, because he was certain that his face was a display of emotions that he would never have dreamed of letting anyone see and that he tried to pretend he never felt.

Bobby was right, of course. Sam was a grown man, no longer an innocent little boy to be protected. He was a superb hunter who could take care of himself, who didn't need cosseting and who looked out for Dean as much as Dean did for him.

But right now all Dean could see was his little brother, who'd been hurt and afraid, and who'd taken refuge in the closest thing to his big brother that he could find.

And damn it, how did Sam manage to induce these touchy-feely moments even when he was asleep?

"You drool on my jacket, dude, you're getting it cleaned." The air-conditioning was drying his mouth; it was certainly not emotion making his voice husky.

Sam stirred with a soft sleepy murmur.

"Sam? You awake?"

Sam's fingers shuffled on the leather, tugging it closer, but his eyes didn't open.

"Guess not, then." Dean's crooked grin was at once wry and tender. One hand reached out and adjusted the blanket, pulling it up where it had slipped off Sam's shoulder, and for just a moment he was nine years old again and his most important job, his only job, was to watch out for Sammy.

* * *

"Spores, from a parasitic fungus called _Cordiceps_, have infiltrated their bodies and their minds."

The plummy voice filtered slowly through the blanketing twilight of semi-awareness. He drifted, not quite asleep anymore, but not fully conscious either.

"Utterly disorientated, it grips a stem with its mandibles."

A thought hovered on the edge of his mind, something he should remember. He was comfortable though. It was warm, and soft, and there were no lumps in the mattress, and right then he just wanted to lie there, to float in a beautiful half-sleep and not open his eyes and face reality, or even think.

"The fruiting body of the _Cordiceps_ erupts from the ant's head..."

"Dude, that's just nasty." Dean's voice, delighted and disgusted in equal measure.

_Dean... _

Whatever it was, that all-important and tantalisingly out-of-reach thought, Sam knew it involved Dean. A flash of remembered fear died as quickly as it had flared up: Dean was safe, although why that was ever in doubt was beyond Sam's faltering memory at that point. His voice was quiet, but reassuringly close.

"The fungus is so virulent that it can wipe out whole colonies –"

"Whassa time?"

He hadn't meant it to come out like that. He hadn't meant it to come out at all, really. He was still trying vaguely to make sense of his surroundings. But maybe knowing the time would help...

"Sam? You awake, bro?" The smooth British voice was cut off mid-word, and Dean's was suddenly closer, amusement replaced by some other emotion that Sam didn't have the energy to identify.

"Wha's..." His mouth felt disgustingly gluey. There was a rustle of movement, and a moment later a plastic straw nudged against his lips.

He'd thought that the bed was wonderful. It faded into insignificance beside the sheer bliss that was cool water, trickling gloriously down his aching throat.

The straw was withdrawn far too soon, and he moaned in inarticulate protest.

"Sorry, Sammy, not too much at once. You can have some more in a few minutes."

Sam swallowed and tried again.

"Dean..."

"Yeah."

"Wha's th' time?"

Dean snorted, but not unkindly.

"What's with this sudden time obsession? You've been sleeping long enough..." Then he relented. "It's three-thirty. In the afternoon."

Sam pondered that.

"D' I sleep all day?"

"Dude." Any traces of amusement were gone from Dean's voice now. "You slept for almost two days. You've been really out of it."

_Two days?_

Sam had been putting off the moment when he'd have to face the world again, but at that his eyes opened involuntarily.

Dean was closer than he'd expected, leaning forward from where he was apparently sitting next to the bed. Even in the muted lighting Sam could see the dark beginnings of a beard, the heavy shadows like bruises under his eyes. Dean looked a mess.

"Dean... wha'... where... what happened?"

Dean cleared his throat, frowning a little.

"Well... uh... what do you remember?"

"I don't –"

_Pain._

_Heat._

_Maddening, unbearable thirst..._

_Fear. Dean would... Dean was..._

"Sam? Sammy! Hey, look at me –"

Dean was fine. Dean was right there, talking to him. So what was it, that heavy dull ache that had nothing to do with his head or his feet, that was somewhere between fear and horror and grief, that was somehow worse than the pain and the heat and the thirst...

"Sammy? Hey, hey, it's okay –"

No, it wasn't. It wasn't okay at all.

Because he remembered now. He remembered that dusty air and the sticky vinyl of the car seat. He remembered what Dean had said.

"_Man, you're a great hunter... but as a companion you really suck."_

Dean was saying something, brows drawn together and eyes narrowed, concern bleeding into alarm, but all Sam could see was frustration, a tired face not bothering to hide resentment and green eyes dark with annoyance. All he could hear was Dean's words.

"_... as a companion you really suck..."_

"_... as a companion you really suck..."_

"_... you really suck..."_

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry again, but not from thirst this time. His fingers clenched involuntarily on the bedclothes. And then for the first time since he'd woken he noticed what he was lying on. His hand wasn't curled around a generic well-washed hospital pillow. The warmth under his cheek wasn't starched cotton.

Hurt and humiliation caught in his throat. His eyes flicked to Dean's face and down again.

"Sorry... sorry..."

Then he pushed the jacket away, towards Dean, and rolled over so that his face was hidden.

* * *

Dean knew the exact moment when Sam remembered.

For a moment, when he'd seen those dazed blue-green eyes, heard Sam ask what time it was in that unfamiliarly husky voice, he'd dared to hope that his brother had forgotten. The concussion and high fever and seizures had scared the hell out of him, but if they'd driven the memory of that fight out of Sam's mind, they wouldn't have been all bad.

And Sam asked what had happened, and Dean asked what he remembered.

"I don't –"

And then Sam remembered.

Dean watched realisation flood across his face. His eyes widened, fear flickering with a caught breath.

"Sam? Sammy! Hey, look at me –" Dean could hear the cardiac monitor speeding up. Sam's gaze drifted to his face, but he didn't seem to be seeing him.

"Sammy? Hey, hey, it's okay –"

It wasn't really. It wasn't okay. Because the fear was fading from Sam's face, but the stricken expression that replaced it was worse. Sam was staring at him, pale where he had been flushed with sleep.

He hadn't forgotten anything.

"Sam, come on... don't..."

Sam's throat worked, face fighting emotion he was too weak to hide. His fingers tightened convulsively on Dean's jacket.

From the way confusion flickered momentarily across his face, Dean guessed he hadn't been fully aware of what he was holding. Sam's gaze darted to the leather, and then up to Dean's face, and at the pain and mortification in his eyes Dean caught his breath.

"Sammy –"

Sam didn't seem to hear him. He pushed the jacket towards Dean with hands that shook a little.

"Sorry... sorry..." It wasn't just his hands that were shaking. He shrank back in the bed and then rolled over, away from Dean.

"Sam." If he'd had attention to spare, Dean would have hated how helpless he sounded. He did hate the spark of pain that prickled inside, that stupid, selfish part of him that minded that Sam had rejected the comfort he'd sought earlier.

He hated even more that Sam had apologised. That Sam thought Dean would mind about his jacket being used like that.

He hated himself for giving Sam reason to think that way.

He'd hoped that Sam had forgotten, or that perhaps he hadn't taken it seriously. It had replayed in his mind over and over, that fight, those words. He'd hoped that they hadn't had as much of an effect on Sam.

Sam's behaviour now told him how naïve he'd been to hope.

And he had no idea how to make it right. How did he unsay it, take back what he'd said, convince Sam that he hadn't meant it?

"Sammy... look, man..." His voice petered out with his inspiration. Sam didn't acknowledge him, or give any indication that he'd even heard. His shoulders were hunched in a protective curve.

Protective of himself, from Dean.

_Damn it, Sammy..._

Dean sank back in his chair with a heavy breath, scrubbing one hand over his face.

Sharing his feelings was not something he regarded as one of his strengths. It wasn't that he didn't experience those emotions, but expressing them was something he left to Sam. Sam should know what Dean was thinking, anyway; they'd been brothers long enough that Dean shouldn't have to voice things out loud. A bumped shoulder was Dean's usual way of saying "I love you". A fond insult expressed "I need you around".

That wasn't going to be enough this time.

Sam wasn't going to make it easy for him, either. Even on the rare occasions when Dean was trapped into saying something, it was always Sam who initiated it. Looking at him now, Dean knew that wasn't going to happen. Dean had called their relationship into question. Sam thought he didn't want his friendship.

Sam wasn't going to go all dewy-eyed brotherly love on him anytime soon.

And now that it was up to Dean, he didn't know what to say.

The television in the corner flickered, David Attenborough expounding silently on some marvel of nature. In the corridor outside the room Dean could hear the steadily increasing bustle of early evening. Sam lay motionless, apparently asleep.

From the tension in his shoulders Dean could tell that wasn't the case.

He pushed up from his chair, sending it skittering back on the linoleum, and stalked to the window.

"Why are you still here?"

"What?" Of all the things he'd thought Sam might say, that wasn't one. He turned his head, frowning.

"You don't have to hang around. I'm fine now." Sam didn't sound angry. He didn't even sound bitter.

"Sammy, I..." Dean exhaled heavily. "You know I didn't mean it, right? I was... I was just..." His words faded uncertainly.

Sam just looked at him. His normally expressive blue-green eyes were dully opaque, and Dean had no idea what he was thinking.

But he could see Sam didn't believe him.

He hooked his hands behind his neck and looked back out of the window. On the gravel path below a small child skipped past, swinging a teddy-bear by one arm and clutching the hand of a young man. In the light spilling from the hospital windows his face was happy and animated, and for an instant Dean saw another little boy, all dark curls and big eyes and endless questions.

And suddenly he knew exactly what to say.

"You can have Floyd."

"What?"

That had caught Sam's attention; when Dean glanced at him, he saw blank confusion. He cleared his throat.

"You can have Floyd."

Sam's frown deepened.

Dean found his hands were clenched into fists. If Sam didn't remember – if he didn't recognise the allusion – this wouldn't work.

Then something flickered across Sam's face, and the frown gave way to comprehension.

"_It's time for your bath." Dean looked over the top of his comic at his small brother, engrossed in his current favourite picture book. _

_Sammy lowered his head, dark curls covering his eyes, and didn't answer._

"_Sammy, go have your bath." _

_There was less patience than usual in Dean's voice. He dearly loved his brother, but there were times when he secretly wondered whether a dog might not have been a better option. _

_Today had been one long continuous succession of those times._

_Sam had refused to change out of his pyjamas._

_Once he'd finally been wrestled out of them, he'd insisted on wearing Dean's favourite sweater._

_On which he'd then spilled an entire bottle of raspberry soda._

_For the first time ever, he'd rejected the bowl of Lucky Charms Dean had given him for breakfast, and demanded Pop Tarts instead. Dean himself had been eying the lone Tart left in the box, but he'd gritted his teeth, taken the now soggy Lucky Charms and toasted the Pop Tart for Sammy._

_Who'd proceeded to cry for fifteen minutes because Dean had eaten his Lucky Charms._

_Once he'd calmed down, he'd gone off to collect his school bag. He'd then had a twenty-minute tantrum when Dean reminded him that it was Saturday._

_Dean had refused to let him play outside in the snow, arguing reasonably that he was recovering from a very bad cold. He'd had another tantrum when Dean shouted at him for climbing out of the bathroom window to play in said snow._

_Two more tantrums had followed, after two more foiled attempts to escape via the bathroom window._

_Dean had welcomed the quiet that followed, until he'd discovered Sammy with a felt-tip pen and Dean's prized comic collection, 'practising his writing'._

_The tears that ensued had lasted until lunch._

_The peanut butter and jelly sandwich Dean provided for lunch had been rejected. Sam refused to eat it unless Dean poured Worcestershire sauce (extra hot) all over it. Sam had never tasted Worcestershire sauce (extra hot) before, and upon his first mouthful loudly and tearfully announced that he didn't like it. Since those had been the last slices of bread, Dean had then had to pass his own over to his brother, and force down the PB&J á la Worcestershire himself._

_Exhausted by his emotional morning, Sam had fallen asleep on the couch in front of the television, and Dean had enjoyed a peaceful hour and a half._

_Until Sam woke up and discovered that he'd slept through his favourite program._

_At that point Dean, convinced that his usually sweet-tempered brother had somehow been possessed by a particularly maddening demon, had thrown holy water at him._

_Sammy had not steamed. _

_His response had otherwise been about as indignant as if he had, in fact, been possessed. _

_He'd retreated, eventually, to the corner of the room, and buried himself in the Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever that had been his Christmas present from Pastor Jim. _

_Now, from the mutinous way in which Sam refused to look up, Dean guessed that the next battle was about to begin._

"_I don't want to." Dean didn't have to see his brother's face to know what expression it was wearing. _

"_Sam –"_

"_No." _

"_Fine." _

_Dean got off the couch, tiptoed across to where Sam was determinedly ignoring him, and yanked the book away._

_Sam's screech would have done a banshee proud._

"_Give it back! GIVE IT BACK!"_

"_Not until you've had your bath!"_

"_GIVE IT TO ME!" At four, Sam was considerably smaller than Dean, and it was an easy task to hold the book out of his reach. Sam threw himself against his brother, chubby hands grasping futilely. "DEEEAN!"_

"_Go have your bath!"_

"_NO!" Sam's face was crimson. "Give me my book!" One small fist thumped against Dean's chest._

"_Hey!" _

_Small or not, that fist had hurt, and Dean's arm dropped a little._

_Sammy pounced. _

_Dean jerked back instinctively._

'_Best' the storybook might well have been._

'_Strongest' it was not._

_To the accompaniment of an ominous ripping sound, Sam sprawled backwards onto the floor, his face ludicrous with horror and half a page clutched in one hand. _

"_Sammy –" Dean's voice was hushed with almost equal horror, as he stared at the damaged book. Sam had so little that was really his... and he'd been so proud of his shiny new book..._

"_My... my book... you broke my BOOK!" _

"_I didn't mean –" _

"_P-pastor JIM gave it to me... a-a-an' you BROKE it!" _

"_I know –"_

"_You're so s-stupid! You broke my bestest book!"_

"_Sammy, I'm sorry –"_

"_I hate you! I wish you weren't my brother! I HATE YOU!"_

_Dean didn't know what expression came over his face at that. Judging by the way Sam went suddenly quiet, something of what he was feeling was visible on his face._

_They'd had their fair share of arguments before. He'd been irritated with Sammy, and Sammy had been angry with him._

_Sam had never, even in his worst moments, said he didn't want Dean as a brother._

_The book slipped unheeded from lax fingers, falling open and face-down to the floor. Without looking at his brother, Dean turned and went back to the couch._

"_Dean?" Sammy's voice was uneasy. Dean ignored it. He caught up the comic he'd been reading and held it in front of his face, fiercely pretending that the pictures weren't blurring. _

"_Dean, I... I didn't mean..." Sam sounded worried now, by the enormity of what he'd said or by Dean's reaction._

"_Go have your bath." Dean was pleased with how his voice didn't quiver._

"_I'm sorry, Dean..." There was a definite shake in Sam's._

"_Bath." _

"_O-okay." Sam tiptoed away. Dean waited until the bathroom door shut – very quietly – before swiping angrily at the betraying tear that had managed to escape._

"_Dean?" _

_He hadn't even heard Sam emerge; he caught a whiff of baby soap and knew his little brother must have finished his bath, but he had no idea what he'd done during that time. He was still staring blindly at the same page._

"_What?"_

"_Um... what's for dinner?" Sam sounded very small and uncertain. _

"_I don't care."_

"_But –"_

"_Have what you want, Sam."_

"_D-Dean?"_

"_What?"_

"_I... I'm sorry..."_

"_Yeah. Whatever." He kept his eyes firmly on the comic book. Sam hovered uneasily for a moment before padding away to the tiny kitchen. _

_The sounds of obvious struggle that ensued would ordinarily have had Dean rushing to the rescue, protective instincts on red alert. But now he just sat. Sam hated him. Sam didn't want him as a big brother. It had been his defining role for the last four years; it was almost disturbing how lost he felt without it._

"_Dean?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_I... um... I made you some dinner."_

"_I'm not hungry."_

_There was silence. Dean could picture the mournful dark eyes that were probably being directed at him, but he steadfastly refused to look up. If he saw his little brother's face he wouldn't be able to stop himself from re-hearing Sammy's words. And then he'd cry, and then he'd be humiliated as well as hurt. _

"_I'm _really_ s-sorry, Dean." There was more than a hint of tears in Sam's voice now. _

_Dean wanted to believe him. He wanted to rewind the day, go back to before Sam had been a brat and Dean had damaged his book and Sam had said... what he'd said. _

_He wanted the little brother who looked at him with hero-worship in his eyes._

_But that little brother had said he wished Dean wasn't his brother._

_He grunted, still staring fiercely at his comic, and listened to the dejected footsteps as Sammy trudged into the single bedroom. At some point Dean was going to have to bury his hurt and pretend that things were okay again; Sam might not like it, but big-brotherness was ingrained deeply in Dean, too deeply for him to be cold with Sam forever._

_Even if Sam didn't like it. Even if Sam hated him._

"_Dean?" He felt the cushions dip under the slight weight as Sam climbed onto the couch._

"_Huh?"_

"_I... um... you can have Floyd." _

"_What?" That caught his attention. For the first time since their fight Dean looked at his little brother. _

_Sam was a tiny huddle on the seat beside him. Wide, tragic eyes regarded Dean sadly, but his face was determined. _

"_Y-you can have Floyd." Clutched in his outstretched hand was a battered once-pink toy dog. Other than Sam, it was the only thing that had survived the nursery fire that had taken their mother. _

_It was Sam's most precious possession._

"_Sammy, no –"_

"_I want you to have him." _

"_But Sammy, that's your dog from Mom. You love it –" _

_Fat tears welled up, and Dean saw Sammy's lip quiver._

"_B-but... b-but I love you m-more."_

_Sam obviously took Dean's silence as rejection. He pushed Floyd onto Dean's lap and scrambled off the couch._

"'_m sorry..."_

"_Sammy!" Dean's hand shot out and caught a handful of flannel pyjama jacket. "C'mon –" His words ended with a grunt as Sam's arms went round his neck._

"_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Sam wailed. "I di'n't mean it, Dean... I want you to be my brother!"_

_Dean wrapped his own arms around his little brother. He told himself it was entirely to comfort Sammy. That was also, of course, the only reason that he buried his face in the soft baby curls pressed against his shoulder. _

"'_S okay, Sammy." It was now. He had his Sammy, where he belonged. His Sammy who wanted him again._

"_Dean?" Sam's voice was a teary hiccup. "You're the bestest big brother in the whole world..."_

Sam was staring at him in silence. Dean could see he remembered the events of nineteen-odd years ago, but what he was thinking was impossible to tell.

"Sam?" His voice was ridiculously tentative.

Sam exhaled, hard, and swallowed. Then he sucked in a quivering breath as his face crumpled. One hand came up to hide his eyes, but not before Dean saw the gleam of wetness trickling from under tightly closed lids.

"Sammy." Dean blinked hard against the sudden burn in his own eyes, and sat down heavily on the bed next to Sam. One hand reached out instinctively. Hovered for a moment, uncertain.

_Oh, what the hell..._

He let his hand drop to Sam's shoulder.

Something suspiciously like a sob escaped from the younger Winchester.

"Dean_..._" The word came out choked. Then Sam's other hand came up and gripped Dean's wrist.

"I thought... I thought you were gonna die." Okay, maybe that was an unorthodox way to begin a grand apology.

But then Dean had never been very fond of 'normal'.

"Out there in the desert... you were missing, I couldn't find you. You were gone for almost a day. I... I dunno... I thought..." Damn it, he was going to be bawling like a girl in a minute.

Sam shifted a little under his hand, but the fingers curled around Dean's wrist didn't loosen their grip.

"I was walking around, and I couldn't see you anywhere... and all I could think was that if you... if you didn't make it... that you'd go thinking that I... that I..." He cleared his throat hard.

"Dean –"

"What I said in the car... I didn't mean it, Sammy. I thought... I thought I was going to lose you. I swear, I didn't mean it. I could never... I don't know what I would have done if..." He tilted his head back and scowled at the ceiling until his vision cleared.

"Dean..." Sam's voice quivered. Dimples made a momentary appearance as he smiled through the tears, and he shifted closer, pressing a little against Dean's leg.

"_You're the bestest big brother in the world..."_

Sometimes – most of the time, lately – Dean felt that he was anything but that.

But he was pretty sure he'd won first prize when it came to little brothers.

His grip tightened on Sam's shoulder, and for a while no more words were necessary.

"You're a monster pain in the ass, you know that?" he said at last. There was nothing but love in the muttered words.

"Yeah, I know." The monster pain in the ass smiled at him, dewy eyes and all. "And you're a jerk."

"Bitch."

Hospital beds weren't really designed to be sat on, especially when they were already occupied by floppy-haired giants. Dean's back was going to be cursing him later. But for now, he wouldn't choose to be anywhere else.

"Dean?" Sam's eyes were widening with a dawning realisation. "I was just thinking..."

"What?"

"When I woke up..." There was pure delight in Sam's grin. "Were you watching a _documentary_?"

_**SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN**_

_**A/N 1: Dean was, actually. Everything Sam overheard was taken from 'Jungles' from the BBC series "Planet Earth". (Hence the disclaimer at the beginning). **_

_**A/N 2: And now I've got to hibernate for the next six weeks and write my thesis. Blah**__**. If you feel like cheering up a poor stressed-out student, a review would be the best way to do it... ;-)**_


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